


The Wicked Woods

by BosieDouglasWilde



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas, Faerie Folklore, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
Genre: Character Development, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Eventual Romance, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fairy Tale Retellings, Feminist Themes, Gen, Multi, Mystery, Mystery Stories, Mystery Twins, Original Character(s), Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Twins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-06-22 08:12:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19663339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BosieDouglasWilde/pseuds/BosieDouglasWilde
Summary: After their business in Brighton has failed, Lysandra and her sister Demetria return to their childhood home in Northern Scotland – the place where they once found their parents literally torn to pieces. Now, sixteen years later, the twins return, desperate to sell the building that holds such horrors. But the house needs work. As the sisters try to quickly renovate the place, strange and stranger things keep happening, things that might have something to do with their parents’ brutal murder. The mysteries seem to pile up without end. Where did their grandmother appear off to? Who are their mysterious neighbours? And why does everything in the house seem to move without anyone touching it? Something crawls through the basement; something moves through the house; and something lives in the woods, something that will come out to get you; something that may not be completely human...





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Midsummer Night's Dream retelling, or more or less inspired by! It has loads of folkore and myth thrown in, and many Fae elements, inspired by Sarah J. Maas, for example.

**Chapter One**

My mother used to tell me the moon sang when I was born; that the stars danced around it and the ocean cheered. The leaves rustled and lifted from the ground to spread the joyous news to the trees and the animals, and the animals whispered it into each other’s ears, and my grandmother who could talk to the birds heard when a raven sat perched on her windowsill and squawked three times. She wrapped herself in a colourful shawl she had knitted herself and made her way through the forest to our house and smiled at her new-born grandchild, covered in blood and wrinkled and blue, screaming her little lungs out upon perceiving the world she had been placed in.  
My mother used to tell me that the waves screamed and the wind howled like a wounded animal when my sister was born, only a few minutes later. The leaves hid under tree roots and tried to ignore this new life that came like a thunderstorm; the animals dug themselves into their holes and covered their little heads with their paws. My grandmother took one look at my twin sister; took one look at her eyes like mine, the single cry she uttered after which she was silent, and at the bright green snake coiling around my mother’s bedpost, and turned around. She left and was never seen again.  
My mother, by the way, was quite the dramatic. I didn’t believe her story – not at all. My father actually used to wink and whisper to me, tell me that my mother had been feverish with birth and was just confusing my grandmother’s actions with something that had meaning instead of the actions of a confused old woman. He said my sister was not wicked, nor was I some holy being that could do no wrong. I was nine at the time. It was the last time I embraced him. My father was warm, so warm, his own personal little oven. In the winter my sister and I curled up against him and fell asleep, and he had to carry us to bed, careful not to wake us.  
As I wander around our parental house now I realise that even if we were, it wouldn’t matter, not at all. I love my sister, she loves me. We have each other. That’s all we have; that’s all we need. I didn’t think I’d ever come back here. This house holds good memories, sure, but it holds much more pain and screaming and blood than it does happiness. I carefully put my suitcase on the worn wooden floor. My old bedroom. It still smells of lavender – I used to burn the purple candles every day.  
Some things never fade.  
Before I can stop myself I wander downstairs, to where my sister stands, and stare like she does. Years of neglect have done little to wear away the dark stains in the wooden floor and walls. Blood, so much, though in my mind it was much more. A child’s memory. A tendency to exaggerate. It seems like so little now, when in my mind the blood covered the entire floor and ceiling like a gruesome fresh coat of paint.  
“Suppose we can’t wash this,” my sister mumbles.  
I smile. “It’s a little bit too late.”  
“A little bit.” She kicks the wall. “I hate this.”  
“So do I.”  
“I want to leave.”  
“So do I.”  
“Why don’t we?”  
I sigh. “Because we have nowhere else to go.”  
“This place is haunted.”  
“Well, if it is,” I say, turning away from the dark red stains, “we’ll have a great chance to talk to our parents again.”  
She smiles, but doesn’t laugh. I’m sure it’s a tasteless joke, but our way of dealing with loss has always been... inappropriate humour. It’s weird. It’s hard. It’s who we are. But moving into our old home, well... it’s harder than I had imagined. All these memories flooding back like a tidal wave.  
I push them away for now.  
It’s an old house, a strange house. The children who live in the village down the mountain used to break in before we came here As soon as they see cars they leave, angry at the unexpected presence and the theft of their chance to show off. I understand why they break in – the house looks positively haunted, a gothic masterpiece, with large pointed stained glass windows and a huge old wooden double door which creaks when it opens. The wood it’s been built out of is dark and worn, and the porch looks like it can collapse any minute when you look at it for too long. It has tons of strange little towers and ornaments and roofs that don’t go anywhere and seem out of place. Some doors just open into nothing, some open into empty rooms. Deep red roses cover most of the east side of the building, smothering the walls like an overbearing mother.  
It is strange to be back here.  
We moved in today. Carrying our suitcases up to the front door is one of the strangest experiences I’ve had. I was afraid of strange looks from our neighbours, but they don’t seem to be home, though several cars line the driveway up to the crisp white modern building, a stark contrast to what my sister and I own. Our house is on one side of the hill, their house on the other side, but we can see each other’s driveways. That is all we share.  
“We should go say hello,” I offer.  
My sister shakes her head. “No way. Not in the mood. We’ve just arrived in the house in which our parents were brutally murdered. I’ll need a few days.”  
She’s right, of course. We need time, more than just a few days. Perhaps a few weeks, a few months, a few years, perhaps. A few lifetimes. A few lifetimes that are happy, and careless, and without worry or care. I can hardly recall days that were like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely depressed every single second of every single day, but happiness is more of a happy coincidence rather than a fact, or goal, or way of living.  
I can’t remember much from my childhood. It’s mostly the standard haze, snippets and polaroid pictures jumping around and suddenly popping up when you smell that certain vanilla smell that reminds you of your aunt’s perfume. The vague recollection of the colour of your favourite swing in the local playground. The warmth of your old, bad television and the poor graphics that dance and pop and crackle like embers in the air above a summer campfire. I care very little for those memories, though many cherish them. My childhood is a taboo topic somehow. Even the thought of the feeling of my father’s arms around me, warm and kind, and the vague smell of coffee and old paper that always surrounded him, is enough to make my eyes fill with unwelcome tears. My sister – she’s different. She’s hardened over the years. She was the one who talked at their funeral. I couldn’t even stare at the coffins because I knew my parents were in there, in pieces. I just buried my head in my aunt’s jacket and cried.  
This isn’t a very happy beginning of this story – I’m sorry. I promise, there are lighter bits to come. Think of this as staring up at the night sky. First, it seems dark, but the longer you look, the more stars appear, and before you know it the Milky Way clouds most of your vision and the universe dances before your eyes.  
But first, the dark things. Let us dive in.

_My sister and I had spent a lovely week at our aunt’s, and our much older cousin had just driven us back. Her name was – is – Diane, and she used to wear vintage white leather gloves when she drove. She said it made her feel classy, like in those old-timey Hollywood films. That particular day she had even opted for a thin, frilly scarf to cover part of her hair, meticulously embroidered with vines and flowers, and a pair of thick-rimmed white sunglasses. I had stared at her from the passenger’s seat, flabbergasted at her carefully thought-our glamour. She had smiled, her dark red lipstick slightly smudged at the corner of her mouth, and had stopped the car in front of my parents’ manor._  
_“Your house is such a mess,” she had sighed. “But it has a good aesthetic, I suppose. The Addams Family could live here and be happy.”_  
_I didn’t know who the Addams Family was. I just nodded, starry-eyed, and watched her get out of the car with that well-practiced elegance._  
_My sister in the backseat had snorted. “She has a stick up her ass.”_  
_I stared at her in shock._  
_“You can’t say that!”_  
_“Can, too.”_  
_“Can’t! It’s a bad word.”_  
_She had shrugged. “You’re the only one here to hear it. And it’s true. Cousin Matteo said so.”_  
_And with those words she had jumped out of the car, too, stomping in the mud on purpose so it befouled our cousin’s convertible._  
_We had walked to the front door. We had almost run at full speed. I was excited to see my parents again after only a week, excited to tell them about all the fun things we had done, about how we had both shot arrows with a cheap wooden bow and how we had made a campfire in the woods._  
_Cousin Diane stopped in front of us. I almost ran into her._  
_“That’s strange,” she had said, more to herself than to us. “The door is open.”_  
_My sister had ignored her. She had pushed past Diane and had run inside, yelling for our parents, giggling and jumping. I had quickly followed her. I hadn’t wanted to seem ill-behaved to our elegant cousin but I was too impatient, too hungry for my parents’ attention and love. I wanted to tell my mother about the dress I had tried on, and the wooden figurine I had whittled our of a piece of birch with a big sharp knife. I wanted to tell my father about how we had gone to the lake in the middle of the night to see the glow worms in the cave nearby._  
_My sister’s scream rang through our house like a fire alarm. I had covered my ears in a reflex but quickened my pace nonetheless, because my sister was stumbling back like someone had punched her in the gut, her face a horror-stricken mask. She was trailing something red along the floor with her shoes. I only realised later it was blood. I pushed her aside and jumped into the room, ready to attack whoever had frightened her so, and almost fainted. The whole room was red. Fully red. Red on the floors and ceiling and walls, and red on the table and sofa and television. A hand reached for me, the fingers still neatly covered with cheerful blue nail polish – the arm lay several meters to the left, shards of glass from the coffee table sticking from the elbow. Against the back wall two heads had been mounted, staring at me with big empty eyes, blood as red as the roses that covered our house dripping from the severed necks like melting ice cream. My ears rang with screams once again – my own this time. I stumbled back. Into my sister. We fell and went down and crawled against the wall like we wanted to crawl through it, gripping each other, clawing at each other’s arms and legs like that would stop the visual of our parents’ torn apart bodies._  
_Cousin Diane reached us. She took one look to the left and her spine went slack, finally, every semblance of elegance and perfection leaving her as she bent over and vomited on the floor. Before she had even properly finished she turned to us, face pale and green and eyes rimmed red. She grabbed us both by the waist and started hoisting us away. I fought her, tooth and nail, suddenly desperate to reach my parents again. My sister did the same. Cousin Diane ignored our screaming and crying and the beating of our fists on her body and ran, ran, ran through the hallway, our of the door, from the porch to her car, and almost threw us into the backseat._  
_“We’re going,” she breathed. “We’re going, we’re going, we’re going, we’re never coming back here, oh god, oh, god-“_  
_My sister and I just screamed until our throats went numb. I don’t remember what happened after._

There. That’s me. My sister and I, traumatised children raised by an aunt and uncle who really did not want them but tried their hardest anyway. I appreciate them, I love them, but my parents... well, they were my parents. I can’t explain it properly, so I won’t try anymore. It would be boring.  
“Lysandra?”  
My sister carefully touches my shoulder. I jump, shake my head as if trying to shake the memories out, and attempt a smile, but to no avail. She worries.  
“It’s nothing, Demetria.”  
She raises an eyebrow. “Sure. You were thinking about them, weren’t you?”  
“How can I not?”  
I carefully touch the stained wood. My parent’s lives, rubbed into the walls like varnish.  
“I know it’s hard,” she says softly, “but this is where we live now. We’ll find paint tomorrow, okay?”  
Demetria and I are here to repair the house where necessary. The haunting structure has been in our family for ages, but neither of us want it anymore, and we are the official owners. Our aunts and uncles and cousins are angry at us for wanting to sell it, but they have been afraid to voice their disagreement, solely because they know how sensitive the subject is for us. Still, we haven’t heard from any of them ever since we announced our plans during the last family weekend.  
“Making this house ready for the market is impossible.” I sigh. “Perhaps this was a bad idea.”  
Demetria smiles. “It will be hard. A challenge. But... worth it. I hope. Besides, we have to sell it. We have no money left and we can’t keep living off our family.”  
A moment of silence for our failed business. Before coming here as a last, desperate resort, we lived in Brighton, a bustling city full of life and wonder and ran a moderately successful book store annex cat cafe. It failed when a bigger and better version of our cute little store popped up across the street. Bills piled up, customers stayed away. We managed to barely break even, took our cats and the books we had left and moved up North. With barely any savings and two English degrees we quickly realised we had nowhere to go but home. The idea of living with our aunt again made me want to walk into the ocean. So we loaned as much money as we could, which wasn’t much since neither of us even had a proper job, and decided to sell the house that had seen such horrors.  
“A few months,” Demetria says. “That’s all we need. A few months and a few stupid, desperate buyers.”  
“There must be some gothic teenager somewhere desperate to live in a haunted house,” I mumble. “One with rich parents.”  
Demetria grins. “That’s the spirit. Come on, let’s unpack.”  
With shoulders burdened with more than just the suitcases I’ve taken with me I turn my back to the blood-stained wall, shuddering despite myself, and follow her upstairs.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Imagine a haunted house. Now times it a hundred and add some poor taste – there’s my childhood home. Several strange towers and rooms that are useless and serve no purpose. Some are even impossible to get into – there’s no door. It stands high and crooked on top of a hill, surrounded by comically gothic iron gates overgrown with thorns and weeds. A few foxes have made their home in our wild garden; I’ve seen them scurrying through the bushes like they own the place, which, given nobody has been here for sixteen years, is perhaps not completely inaccurate. Large ebony pillars, rotting at an alarming rate, line the porch and hold up a dilapidated roof. The stained glass windows depict the strangest scenes, from myths and legends to family memories. Most of them are broken or gone now. The garden used to be beautiful, when my father tended to it, but now it’s overgrown and a mess of weeds and out-of-control plants. The apple tree only grows rotten fruit. The once lovingly lain cobblestone paths that lead past flowerbeds and little benches and statues are almost impossible to find.  
I stand next to the enormous statue of what my mother said was a moon goddess and stare into the statue’s empty eyes. She smiles slightly as she holds up her arms to embrace a crescent moon, like she’s holding up a bowl for the stars to drink from.  
“It’s so dramatic.”  
Demetria stops kicking a cobblestone loose and looks up.  
“True. It’s nice, though. Gives the garden an elegant touch, if we can get those roots to stop eating her thighs.”  
I sigh. “This job might take longer than I thought.”  
“We always knew it wouldn’t be easy.”  
“Easier than dealing with uncle Thomas’s attempts to play the didgeridoo.”  
Demetria groans at the memory. “God, don’t start.”  
I look down. “Has that cobblestone insulted you in some way?”  
She follows my gaze to look at her work. “Right. We should probably go inside, see which room needs the most work. I’m cold anyway.”  
Autumn is around the corner and here, in the North of Scotland, the wind bites harder. I nod and follow my sister inside. The house isn’t much warmer – the isolation is, by all accounts, completely fucking terrible – but at least we’ll be out of the wind. I prefer being inside anyway. Outside, the woods loom like an ancient god waiting to strike. The thought of the endless maze of tall dark trees makes me shudder.  
We diplomatically ignore the living room and move straight through to the kitchen. No blood was spilt here, or at least, none that I’m aware of.  
“Well... it’s not as bad as I’d thought,” Demetria says unconvincingly.  
The kitchen was left in a hurry – it wasn’t touched, not after my parents died here. All my aunts and uncles did after my parents’ death was take out the food, and even that they did as quickly as possible. Nobody wanted to be here. I don’t even want to be here. I kick an old piece of crime scene tape and it flutters through the dusty space like a depressed moth.  
“They didn’t even take the cutlery with them.” I nod at the dishwasher. “How much do you want to bet that it’s still full of dirty dishes?”  
Demetria shudders. “Not eager to try, to be honest.”  
I chuckle and carefully move forward. Moving in this house feels... wrong somehow. It should remain stationary. Like a tomb. I try to repress that thought and run my fingers along the stove. They come back caked in a thick layer of grimy dust and grease. I quickly wipe my hands on my jeans.  
“If someone cooks on this as it is now I feel like they will just spontaneously contract the plague.”  
Demetria laughs. “Which is why we’re cleaning it. Which may take weeks. But hey, that’s okay, right? People love vintage stuff.”  
“I hope they love it enough to conveniently forget about a double homicide.”  
“Always have faith in hipsters.”  
I laugh – the sound is hollow and unfamiliar here, out of place and wrong. It echoes through the kitchen and once again I am reminded of a tomb. Colours seem muted here. Grey and murky brown and muted whites and blues; no colour, no flowers, no happiness. We’ll have to change that if we ever want to sell this place.  
We set to work. We clean and scrub, we remove cobwebs and open windows, desperate to let some light in. I spend a full three hours cleaning the oven until I can literally use it as a mirror. It’s cleaner than it was when we first got it, I’m sure. For some reason cleaning the kitchen brings me a surprising amount of joy. Perhaps I hope that as I wipe away the dust, I can also wipe away the history of this place. Yet something still lingers. Something that is... sad. Hard to grasp. Like visiting World War One graveyard with all the anonymous white crosses, straight and stiff with soldiers who were but boys buried underneath them. The air is different somehow. Thicker. Heavier. Saltier.  
“We can stop if you need to, Lysandra.”  
My sister’s soft, gentle voice startles me, and only then do I notice I’m crying. She carefully lays her hand on my shoulder and hands me a handkerchief.  
“I know it’s difficult.”  
I try to smile, though the reflective surface of the oven tells me it’s more like a serial killer’s grimace.  
“I’m okay.”  
Demetria narrows her eyes and shakes her head. “Let me make you some tea.”  
I know it’s useless to stop my sister, so I give in and sit down on the now-surprisingly-clean kitchen floor. It’s a habit – in our old apartment the kitchen floor was the stage for many of my mental breakdowns, often accompanied by a cheap bottle of terribly vinegar-like red wine and a Leonard Cohen album.  
Things change. We don’t even have a record player here – mine broke during the move, though I do still have my records. They are gathering dust in a box in the hallway. We haven’t been able to bring ourselves to unpack everything. We don’t want a reminder that we have to stay here for a long time.  
It’s only when I look up that I notice my sister’s hands are trembling. Her lip quivers; she frowns, angry at her own emotions. I get up and wrap my hands around hers.  
“It’s okay.”  
She shakes her head. “It’s not. It’s been sixteen years. But...” She looks at the kettle on the stove, bubbling away happily. “It’s just... Dad always used to do this. Remember?”  
I smile. “With honey.”  
“With honey.” She blinks away tears. “I miss them. Still.”  
“I don’t think we’ll ever stop missing them.”  
“I know.” She kicks the kitchen counter with her bare foot. “This may have been a mistake.”  
“Oh, it was definitely a mistake,” I say with a sigh. “But it’s much too late to turn back now. I’ll go see if I can find the teabags.”  
We brought groceries, though most of them are still in boxes. The power still works – it’s a miracle! – so we did place some things in the fridge, but we were so exhausted yesterday that we couldn’t even bring ourselves to laying biscuits in a kitchen cupboard. It surprises me, how well I’ve slept, since the house makes as many sounds as an old woman’s back when she walks down a flight of stairs. It creaks and pops. I feel like it may collapse any minute.  
I walk through the hallways back to the main hall where the boxes stand. I intentionally give myself tunnel vision, desperate to ignore the pictures on the wall that we still haven’t taken down. Pictures of us. Our parents. Holidays. Happiness. I want to tear them off and throw them in the nearby lake, if I could even bring myself to looking at them.  
The pile of boxes is about as crooked as the tower of Pisa. I carefully lift them down, one by one, softly cursing under my breath the entire time. The box that contains the teabags is the bottom one, of-fucking-course. I tear it open and start rummaging through. We brought enough tea to start a tea shop. My sister has a hoarding problem.  
A sudden gust of wind lifts my hair from my face. I look up and notice the front door – open and swaying in the chilly Scottish wind.  
That’s strange.  
I carefully approach it, suddenly suspicious.  
“Demetria?” I yell through the house.  
I hear movement from the kitchen. “Yes?”  
“Did we leave the front door open last night?”  
She pops her head around the corner. Dust and cobwebs stick to her midnight black hair, as if she’s greying already. She frowns.  
“No, we didn’t.”  
“Huh.” I take a step closer. “That is strange.”  
“Maybe it just doesn’t close well anymore. It’s an old house.”  
“Yeah,” I say distractedly. “Maybe.”  
Closer now. I don’t understand why I’m so afraid to open the door – as if my parents’ murderer might stand there, axe in hand, ready for round two. It’s so quiet it unnerves me. My sister moves closer behind me, her careful footsteps muffled by the ratty red carpet that is in high need of replacing.  
I place my hand on the doorknob.  
“Lysandra,” Demetria says quietly. “What’s wrong?”  
I can hear she’s nervous, too. She remains behind me, ready to strike if need me, like an overprotective viper. She carefully takes a baseball bat from one of our boxes and places her feet firmly on the ground.  
“Nothing... I hope.”  
I open the door. Nothing. The absence of a threat does not make me feel much better – if someone did open the door, I would have liked to know who it was.  
“Lysandra,” Demetria says softly, “look.”  
I look at where she is pointing. In front of my feet, on the porch, lies an apple. It’s from our apple tree; I can tell because it is black and rotten, an ugly piece of fruit by all accounts. I step away. My sister pushes past me and pushes it over with her feet.  
“Nothing. Well, that was disappointing.”  
“It’s not nothing,” I note, my voice trembling. “Someone put that there.”  
She shrugs. “Probably a prank from some neighbour kids, or something.”  
I stare at her. “What neighbourhood? There’s only the house next to us, and I haven’t seen anyone outside yet.”  
“There’s a village down the hill. They might have biked up here.”  
“To put an apple on our porch?”  
“Admittedly it’s not the greatest prank.”  
“It’s not.”  
“It doesn’t matter, anyway.” She throws me the apple. I barely catch it. “Come on. Let’s go clean the rest of the kitchen.”  
I look at the apple. It even feels rotten and mushy. If I open it there might be nothing but a set of wriggling worms digging their way through the flesh. I shudder and throw it as far away as I can. It hits the driveway with an unpleasant thud and rolls away into the bushes, out of my sight.

That night I can’t sleep. The apple unnerved me much more than it should. I slip out of bed, careful to avoid the creaking boards. I still remember which ones make the most noise. It seems not much has changed in our house. I slip on a robe and grab my phone to use as a torch, and wander out of my bedroom into the dark corridor. It’s too quiet, still. I miss the sounds of a living city around me. The twenty-somethings making bad decisions because they still can, the teenagers on their first night out, the taxis that drive around every single minute of the day, even the shuffling homeless man who often came to get a coffee with us and sat in a corner, quietly reading a newspaper or crime novel. I miss life around me. Out here there’s nothing, no one, not even a cricket. The silence is eerie. I long for a group of singing drunkards more than ever.  
I sneak past my sister’s room. She is in her old bedroom, too; her name is still painted on the door in clumsy letters. She did it herself. It’s horrible misspelled and crooked, but the buttercup yellow paint gives the whole thing a charming air. I stop briefly to touch the letters, the colour misplaced in such a miserable place. Silence from the other side of the door. Demetria has always been a deep sleeper.  
I move on. The house creaks and sighs with as much enthusiasm as it did the first night, though now I can’t sleep through it, no matter how tired I am. We cleaned the entire kitchen and part of the salon. A room and a half a day? We’ll be here for ages. As I breathe now I can taste the age and the dust of the house. I might contract some sort of lung disease here if I’m not careful.  
My aimless wandering brings me outside to the garden. The moon goddess statue smiles at me from her pillar. From the right angle it looks like she’s cupping the actual moon in her hands. I try to take a picture, but the camera on my phone is too poor to catch how magical the whole scene looks.  
I stop at the gate. There it is, through the vines, through the iron bars, beyond the wildflower-riddled field beyond; there it is. The woods. Dark, tall and looming, moving and swaying as if alive. The woods.  
When I was younger I was never scared of the woods. In fact, my parents often took Demetria and I into them to play and explore, and I loved every minute of it. The scent of rotting leaves and wet earth, the feeling of moss and tree bark, rough like my mother’s calloused fingers. But now... the woods seem different. Threatening. Aunt Maeve made sure my sister and I never went into any forest. Not safe, she said. Full of creatures that could harm us; full of roots to trip over and branches to fall from and lakes to drown in. The city seemed to be the safest place to live. And now, looking at the intimidating trees in the distance, I feel like I understand her fear. Something feels deeply and horribly wrong with them, and-  
_Someone is in the forest._  
My train of thought is immediately cut off when I see something, someone, a shadow, a spectre, weaving its way through the trees at the edge of the forest. Whatever or whoever it is, they move with a thoughtless elegance, a grace that makes them seem less than human. Are they wearing a cloak, or a dress, or...  
The figure turns and looks at me. I think. At least, they suddenly stop and seem to be turning their head, but they’re too far away and it’s too dark to see if they’re looking at me or into the forest. The moonlight isn’t enough of a light source to help. The way they stand, now, so silently, it’s like they froze, like they turned into stone.  
I rub my eyes. They must be playing tricks on me. I’m tired, after all, and this place, it... it inspires the imagination to say the least. When I look back up the figure is gone. Like they were never there in the first place. Perhaps they weren’t. Despite the fact that I’m quite far away from the forest I turn around and run back inside, heart pounding for no reason other than an overactive mind.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

I watch my sister drive off into the distance. Our vacuum cleaner no longer works and she’s going into the village at the bottom of the hill to see if she can find a new one. I’m glad we’re making progress, but I’m not all that keen on staying in the house on my own. I feel like I’ve shrunk several sizes. I watch until I can no longer see our cheap bright orange Ford Cortina and then turn around, reluctantly walking back inside.  
The figure I thought I saw yesterday evening is still playing around in my thoughts. It had to be imagined – right? Who walks through the forest that late? Even I know that’s dangerous. So easy to trip and fall or get lost. When I told my sister she just shrugged.  
“Northern Scotland. People must be bored. Or maybe you were just imagining things, Lysandra. We’re both very tired.” She threw a piece of toast at my head. “I imagined I saw a tall man with horns on his head in my room last night. Turns out it was just my coat hanging on the door.”  
I know it’s the logical option, but being here... logic seems a far-off thing, a strange thing, a thing reserved for big bustling cities where the only green space consists of carefully thought-out, human-made parks and the occasional flowerbed full of cigarette butts and condom wrappers. Here, though... I feel like a visitor.  
Determined to surprise my sister when she gets back, I set to work in the salon. We can’t vacuum the floor yet, but I can dust the shelves. I can clean, I can tidy up, I can throw out what we no longer need. It’s dull work. It’s a rhythm I desperately need. It will take my mind off things, I’m sure of it.  
As soon as I notice I’m getting hungry I take my apple and sandwich outside. Being inside the house does not make me feel better. Every little thing kickstarts a childhood memory I’m not ready for. I almost burst into tears upon seeing a teacup. I wander through the garden looking for a nice place to sit, and preferably not a place where the woods are clearly visible down the hill. I end up walking quite a bit. The garden is huge and ends where our neighbours’ garden begins, separated by an overgrown thorny hedge. Only their side is carefully cut into a nice square shape. It’s not tall, though. The neighbours must have kept it short – as if they still wanted to be able to spy on our house. The idea makes me feel uneasy. I still haven’t seen them.  
I find a stone bench that isn’t covered in weeds or broken and sit down carefully. When it holds up I relax a bit and try to eat my lunch. I call some friends from back home, desperate to hear their voice, but most of them are busy at work. Still, even a few minutes of normal human contact instantly makes me feel better. I’m in the middle of texting my friend Philip a full update on the house when a noise startles me. I look up and nearly scream.  
A woman stands on the other side of the hedge and watches me. Her eyes are the same colour as her hair – disturbingly light grey, bordering on white. The same colour as my hair, in fact, though hers is fuzzier and longer and sloppily wrestled into a braid that reaches her ankles. She squints her eyes as if she’s angry and doesn’t say a word.  
I clear my throat.  
She doesn’t speak.  
“Uh... hello.”  
She raises one eyebrow and finally opens her mouth, revealing some very stained and yellowed teeth.  
“You’re Selus and Lyta’s daughter, aren’t you?”  
Hearing my parents’ names is enough to almost make me cry once again. I swallow thickly and try to seem normal as I answer.  
“One of them, yes.”  
She nods slowly. “You look like your father.”  
Her tone suggests it’s a bad thing. I shift uncomfortably.  
“Right. I’ve heard that before, actually. You’re, uh... my neighbour, I assume?”  
She ignores my question. “You and your sister are back.”  
“Yes.”  
Another slow nod. “Interesting. Why?”  
What’s it to her? She seems... angry, somehow. Upset at my presence. Well, I have just as much right to be here as she does. My sister and I are the official owners of this house, no matter how much I hate it.  
“We’re her to renovate and sell it,” I say as curtly as possible.  
The woman snorts. “Good luck with that. Murder houses rarely sell.”  
How does she-  
“Excuse me?”  
She crosses her arms. The rows and rows of dangling bracelets she wears clink together like crystal wine glasses. I half expect a toast to the happy couple.  
“I know what happened,” she says, almost smugly. “To your parents.”  
I don’t respond.  
“You really shouldn’t be here.”  
I cross my arms as well. “And why is that?”  
Her eyes travel towards the woods. “Things... come from the trees sometimes. Not fit for city girls. You should leave, you know.”  
Anger flares. Who is this woman to tell me what to do, where to go? We’ve never met before, or at least, not that I know of. Perhaps I saw her once as a child. Probably not long enough to leave a significant impression.  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say coldly.  
“Which is why you should leave.”  
“I don’t think so.”  
She shrugs her bony shoulders. “Your choice.”  
“You’re right, it is,” I say angrily. “Who do you think you are? We’ve never even met before!”  
Another shrug.  
“And what do you mean with ‘things come from the trees’? Are there wolves here or something? Foxes?”  
Her gaze meets mine again and my body goes a bit colder. She unnerves me. Why, oh why could we not just have normal neighbours?  
“Did you know,” she says slowly, “that if you fall asleep under a fruit tree, they will come and claim you?”  
“What?”  
She nods at the apple tree on the hill above us. “I’d cut that down if I were you. Doesn’t bear any proper fruit, anyway.”  
I step as close as I can without being attacked by the thorn bushes. “Listen, you’re going to have to start making sense. I’m in no mood for riddles.”  
“Just stay away from the trees.”  
“Thanks,” I say sarcastically, “for this sagely advise. Anything else you’d like to vague up for me?”  
To my surprise, she smiles. “No. That’s it.”  
“Great.” I grab what’s left of my sandwich. “I’ll go eat my lunch somewhere else. Somewhere without crazy people.”  
She doesn’t seem fazed. “My name’s Isla.”  
“Okay.”  
“And yours is?”  
I scoff. “None of your business.”  
Still fuming, I turn around and march back up the hill towards our house. Isla yells something, but I can’t understand what, and I’m too proud to go back and ask. When I turn around on the porch and look down she’s still there, staring straight at me, her hands buried in the pockets of her murky apron.  
“Crazy woman,” I mumble.  
A chill runs up my spine nonetheless. I tear my eyes away from the snowy-haired figure at the hedge and go back inside.

“Lysandra, look at this.”  
I stop scrubbing the salon coffee table momentarily and look up. My sister stands over me, a square red object in hand. She was vacuuming the corridor only moments before. How does everyone around me move so silently?  
“What is it?”  
She kneels down and shoves it towards me. “Picture album.”  
My body temperature drops. “Ah.”  
“From when our parents moved in here.” She smiles a little. “We weren’t even born yet. Do you want to see?”  
I squeeze the sponge I’m holding. Drops of grey water fall on my tattered jeans. “I’m not so sure.”  
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Demetria assures me. She slips her fingers under the leather-bound cover. “But it’s really sweet. There’s more albums around. Some with our baby pictures in them. How embarrassing is that?”  
Before I can respond she throws the album open. The air is made of cotton balls all of the sudden, muffling any other sound. It’s my parents. Selus and Lyta Midsummer, twenty-five years old. The same age we are now. They smile into the camera, each with their arm around a huge wolf-like dog. They used to own two huskies. They died before we were born, but there’s tons of pictures of them around. My mother holds up a trowel and my dad a paint brush. Renovating the house as we are now, but for vastly different reasons. It’s hard to imagine this house being prepared for a long, happy life.  
“They’re so...”  
I don’t finish my sentence. Demetria smiles.  
“I know.” Her smile broadens. “There’s one of mum on her motorcycle, look...”  
She flips through the pages. I don’t understand how she can be so calm, how she can do this with such ease, such quiet determination. I’m afraid to even touch the paper.  
“And here, see, one of the later ones – I think mum’s pregnant here.”  
My mother smiles broadly into the camera. Outside in the sun, one hand on her still-flat belly, eyes glittering knowingly. A bottle of soda stands next to her and one of the enormous dogs, now greying at the snout, has laid his enormous head on her lap, staring up adoringly, as if he is just as excited for this new life to come.  
“Demetria...”  
“Look, look at this one. Dad in a suit. Never thought I’d see that. It’s so ugly, it’s like, red and orange stripes or something. The tie doesn’t match either.”  
She flips the page. Our father. He does look like me – or rather, I look like him, and so does Demetria. We share his eyes. The green of a poisonous frog or snake, flecked with only a little bit of black. It’s a close-up of him. He laughs. Someone has written _Selus, tenth anniversary dinner_ next to it.  
“Mum’s handwriting.” Demetria follows the thin lines with one finger. “So sloppy. Artist’s handwriting. Some of her paintings are still in the attic, I think.”  
I blink away tears. “Right, uh... are there any... is there anything with our neighbour in it in here?”  
Demetria frowns. “Our neighbour? No. Why? Did you see her?”  
“We met.”  
“And?”  
I sigh. “Nightmare. She told us to leave. That we shouldn’t have come. And that we had to cut down our fruit tree, because ‘they’ might come to claim us, and that there are things living in the forest that are dangerous.”  
Demetria chuckles. “Old people. They still believe in strange stories in this part of the world, I think. Don’t let her bother you too much.”  
“She’s strange.”  
“We just won’t mention her when we try to sell the house.”  
I play with the hem of my shirt, ignoring my father’s smiling face in front of me. “She mentioned our parents. Their death. She said she knew what happened.”  
“What?”  
Demetria is no longer smiling. I shrug.  
“I don’t know what she meant. She was a bit vague.”  
“I’m visiting that old hag tomorrow,” my sister hisses. “Let’s see if she’s still vague, then.”  
“Please don’t. We don’t want any trouble.”  
She gets up and lifts the photo album from my lap. “Correction. You don’t want any trouble. I won’t have anyone talk of our parents like they... like they know more than we do, or something.”  
Without another word she marches out. I stay behind, squeezing the sponge, and stare at the wall. But the fading plaster does not have any answers either.

Dinner that night is quiet. We’re both tired. I stab at my salad with my fork, somehow not that hungry after a long day’s work. Demetria on the other hand is already on her third helping.  
“You not hungry?” she asks.  
I shake my head. “No. I’m sorry, I don’t know why.”  
“It’s this stupid house. It’s not good for you. I can see that. But... it will get easier, in a little while.” She smiles. “You just need an adjustment period.”  
I do. I don’t even know how long it’s going to take. My sister seems fine already; the house doesn’t trouble her anymore. She moves through it with ease, whistles sometimes, goes through childhood memorabilia like it’s nothing. It’s like... she has more purpose here. Like she’s found something she was looking for. I envy her. It makes my own adjustment all the more difficult. I was hoping we could at least suffer together.  
“I can make you something else,” she offers. “I can make soup. Though we are out of croutons.”  
I frown. “Don’t be ridiculous. We brought four bags.”  
“See, that’s what I thought.” She points at me with her fork. “But there’s not a crumb left. I found an empty bag in the cupboard.”  
“That’s impossible.”  
“I thought you’d eaten them,” she admits.  
“Four bags? On my own?”  
“It would explain why you’re not hungry.”  
“I didn’t. And I’m thinking neither did you. So what the hell happened?”  
My mind immediately starts running wild. What kind of animals could have crawled from the trees into our home, mutating as we speak, turning into huge monsters with claws and teeth and hatred? Or is a person living here, a murderer, the one who killed our parents?  
“Probably rats,” Demetria says calmly.  
“I’m not so sure. Maybe we should investigate.”  
She stares at me. “Alright, Sherlock. You go investigate the thrilling mystery of the missing croutons, and I’ll go ahead and finish dinner.”  
I throw my lettuce at her and get up. Fine. If she won’t help me I’ll go on my own, though the thought of wandering around this definitely-haunted estate does very little to calm my nerves. My fear of something or someone strange wandering around the house won, though, and I armed myself with dustpan and a fire poker and went into the kitchen.  
Nothing in the cupboards. No secret passages or chewed-through cables or plaster. No other crumbs or stolen food.  
“Are you going to skewer a rat on a fire poker?”  
I banged my head against the cupboard when my sister suddenly popped up next to me. She has always been able to move eerily quietly.  
“Jesus, knock for once.”  
“Sorry. But serious question. Isn’t this a bit much?”  
I glare at her. “Rat don’t steal an entire bag, plastic and all. Unless they’re suddenly environmentally friendly and are taking it with them to dispose into the recycling bin when they’ve finished eating.”  
“Very funny. Just come have dinner.”  
I bang one of the cupboards with the fire poker, hoping something will come scurrying out; to no avail. “I can’t. I’m anxious now. I can’t relax.”  
Demetria mumbles to herself, rolls her eyes and then grabs a frying pan from the cooking top. “Okay. Let’s go. I’m coming with you.”  
“You don’t have to.”  
“It’s not like I can have a nice dinner when you’re scurrying around the house like a robber goblin. Let’s do this.”  
I reluctantly allow Demetria to go first. She raises her frying pan dramatically and starts sneaking through the house in a cartoonish fashion, occasionally shooting me questioning looks like I’m a criminal accomplice. I slap her on the back of the head and push past her, desperate to get to the basement. If there’s rats, they have to be in the basement, right? I don’t know how rats work. I don’t even know if it’s rats. I hope it is – if it’s something else, if our weird neighbour was right... I don’t even want to think about it. That crazy old woman got under my skin. I carefully walk down the flight of rickety wooden stairs leading to the basement, fire poker at the ready.  
“Should we call in a swat team, just to be sure?”  
“Shut up, Demetria.”  
The door is ajar. Not a good sign, though the logical part in my brain whispers that nobody has been around to close it for about sixteen years. I grit my teeth and step through. It’s dark and dank and smells like unmoving water and spilt wine. The lights don’t work (of course) so I slowly grab my phone with one hand to use as a flashlight, never lowering the fire poker. I hear Demetria scoff and choose to ignore her.  
“Lysandra, come on. It’s just rats.”  
“Could you maybe be quiet for about five seconds?”  
She sighs, but doesn’t respond. I turn on my flashlight, momentarily blinding myself, and carefully step forward. It’s a mess of empty crates, knocked over gardening tools and empty bottles.  
Empty bottles?  
“So that’s why it smells like a bar here.” I pick up one of the empty wine bottles. Some reddish liquid drips from it – it’s been opened recently. The floor around it is still vaguely moist. “Do rats drink red wine, now, too?”  
“They might,” Demetria says, but she is holding the frying pan up a bit more anxiously now and scans our surroundings. “Rat... alcoholics... hey, can you shine your flashlight over there? I didn’t bring my phone.”  
“Told you so.”  
“Just do it, Lysandra.”  
As soon as I move my flashlight towards where she is pointing, I hear something. A quick scuffle, like a large animal – or a person. My flashlight casts shadows on the brick wall behind the stack of boxes and I see it. Someone, something, moving. An arm or a leg disappearing behind a crate of cans.  
“Demetria!”  
“I see it.”  
With surprising calm and determination my sister moves forward, frying pan raised, and kicks the crate aside. More scuffling, a muffled swear. I stay behind Demetria as she moves aside to let the light of my flashlight through. Once again I see a few lanky limbs disappear – the shape moves towards the stairs this time.  
We swear simultaneously and move in tandem, running towards the stairs at full speed with weapons raised. But whoever or whatever the figure is, they’re fast. Before we even reach the bottom of the stairs they have already fled through the door upstairs. Footsteps echo through the house and the front door slams. They’re gone.


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

“It was probably a homeless person.”  
“A homeless person that eats croutons?”  
“If they’re desperate.”  
“They were much too fast for a homeless person, Demetria.”  
“Maybe they used to be a professional sprinter or something. Don’t worry about it too much.”  
“Somebody broke into our house and stole our food. I’m calling the police.”  
“Just put the damn phone down.”  
I carefully lower my phone and put it down on the kitchen counter. My heart is still racing.  
“It was a person.”  
“And now they’re gone.” She shrugs. “We probably scared them off. Can you just please calm down a little? I know you’re on edge but... well, nothing happened. They ate our croutons and got tanked on our basement floor. There are worse things in the world, Lysandra.”  
I take a few deep breaths and finally manage to sit down. Adrenaline is still screaming through my veins even though I know Demetria is right – nothing happened. Still, I don’t like the idea of someone being able to break into our house that easily. I know some windows were broken, but... well. It just feels unsafe.  
“We need an alarm system,” I mumble.  
“We’ll get one. Soon. First we have to make this house murder-free.”  
I cringe. “Could you maybe not phrase it like that?”  
Her gaze softens and she sits down next to me, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. We’ll get an alarm system, okay? And... I’ll board up the windows. Should keep some of the cold out, too.”  
“Thank you.”  
“Good. Go to sleep. We’ll continue working in the morning.”  
To nobody’s surprise, I can’t sleep. I twist and turn until my nightgown clings to my body and my hair resembles a bird’s nest. I sigh and mumble like a cartoonish ghost. I’m exhausted but I’ve never been more awake. Angry and frustrated, I get up and step outside of my room again. Where do I go? Outside is too unnerving at night. It’s like the woods move closer when the sun is down.   
For reasons I can’t possibly fathom I wander into the living room. In the dark the stains on the walls and floor stand out a little less and still I feel sick when I step over the threshold. I can see it again. I can see the two bigger stains on the walls where my parents’ heads hung sixteen years ago. The curled up horns made out of twisted twigs that stuck from their skulls, rammed in there with a strength that seems supernatural. Did I make that up? Did that actually happen? I’ve never had the courage to ask my sister about it.  
I reach up to touch one of the stains. The smaller one. My father’s stain, his poison-green eyes staring into nothing, seeing nothing, dampened and without light. Before my fingers touch the surface a loud bang makes me jump.  
“The wind,’ I tell myself.  
Another bang, softer this time, and what sounds like a high-pitched muffled voice. It’s coming from...  
“The basement?” I breathe.  
The amount of time it takes me to decide to run upstairs and wake up my sister is embarrassingly short. She is, of course, fast asleep and mumbles to nobody in particular, something about horns and coat hangers. I roll my eyes and use one of her fifteen decorative pillows to slap her awake.  
“Ow! OW! What the hell is wrong with you?”  
“Someone’s in the basement.”  
She groans and covers her head with her blanket. “No, there isn’t,” she says, muffled. “We chased whoever that was out. Can you please go back to sleep?”  
“Someone’s. In. The. Basement.”  
“Lysandra, I swear...”  
I pull the blanket off her. She cringes and curls up like a hedgehog as she tries to fight off the sudden gust of ice-cold wind that nips at her skin. “Just come help me. Bring the frying pan.”  
“I am not bringing the frying pan.”  
“Bring the baseball bat, then.”  
She swings her legs over the edge of her bed and slips them into her night slippers. “I’ll bring my wonderful personality. Lead the way, Wonder Woman.”  
I glare at her, but go first anyway, though I prefer my sister’s shape in front of me in case something jumps out. With a curse I realise I don’t even have a weapon, and using one of my father’s precious vases seems wrong somehow.  
“Nothing is going to be in the basement, is there?”  
“Hush. Just walk quietly.”  
She complies and we carefully sneak towards the basement door again. I can feel Demetria tensing behind me when once again a bang and a string of curses rings through the hallway. Human voice, definitely.   
“Okay. Maybe you were right,” she whispers. “So now what?”  
“Run?”  
“You are only violent when it is least useful.” She looks around and grabs a small horse statue from one of the mantelpieces in the corridor. “If anyone asks, this was all in self-defense. Turn on your flashlight. Come on.”  
She pushes past me, determined now, and walks towards the ajar basement door. Before she can even reach for the doorknob, however, the door flies open and bangs against the wall so hard that some plaster flies off. Demetria and I both jump back as a small, slender figure comes barrelling through, a ratty tote bag in hand. They notice us and stop dead in their tracks.  
A bony, tiny figure of indeterminate gender looks at us. They have short, messy hair dyed a mossy green which sticks up like whipped cream on a custard bun, contrasting beautifully with their dark brown skin. Their entire face is covered in a constellation of light brownish freckles, and their eyes are as black as the night outside. I can’t even see their pupils. They’re wearing simple brown linen pants that hug their legs tightly and only reach their calves, and a loose beige rough-cotton blouse, an outfit only cheered up by the long silver bird-shaped pendant that hangs around their neck. They are barefoot, which seems like a bad idea in a basement full of broken glass bottles. For a minute they seem tense – then they deflate like a balloon.  
“Oh. I really thought I’d get out before you found me again.”  
We stare. They stare back. An impish grin slowly spreads across their face.  
“Well, might as well introduce myself. I’m Robin. Lovely house you’ve got here.”  
“I’m sorry, who are you?” I sputter.  
They frown. “I just introduced myself. You’re... wait. You can hear me, right? I’m not a ghost?”  
They seem genuinely worried and pat their own arms and legs to check if they are still corporeal.  
Demetria gnashes her teeth. “Stop that! What are you doing in our house?”  
“Oh. That.” They shrug. “I live here.”  
“You live here.”  
“Yes.”  
“For how long?” I ask.  
They shrug again. “Don’t know. What month is it?”  
“What m... are you high?” Demetria bites.  
Robin frowns and looks at themselves once more. “No, I’m quite short, actually.”  
My sister groans and lowers the horse statue. “This is ridiculous. Were you in our basement yesterday, too?”  
They nod enthusiastically. “Sure was! I left my bag when I fled and I came back to claim it, but I couldn’t find it anymore. I have it now, though.”  
“Wonderful news,” my sister says sarcastically.  
Robin beams. “It really is!”  
“Get out.”  
Their smile vanishes like a cloud went over their face. Such a small, child-like face it is, too. I feel a little sorry for them.  
“Do you have a home?” I ask gently.  
Demetria slaps my shoulder. “Lysandra, this is no time for bleeding hearts.”  
I ignore her. “Do you have anywhere to go?”  
They deflate even more, as if they shrunk several sizes. How old are they? My sister has always scolded me for feeling bad for every single homeless person I saw in Brighton. I gave them all a little money, even if I had little to spend myself, even if it was only twenty cents or a coupon for free coffee. Demetria always let me, but she often said I couldn’t help them all even if I tried.   
“I don’t have anywhere,” they say softly, eyes down. “I used to live somewhere, but... it’s not safe there anymore. I ran. This house, I knew it was empty, and it seemed like the safest option.”  
Demetria’s gaze softens a bit. “Well, that’s terrible to hear.”  
They manage an unconvincing smile. “Ah, well. Life goes on.”  
“Is there a homeless shelter nearby?” Demetria asks.  
They shrug.  
“There’s only the village down the hill. Applefary. There’s hardly a supermarket there. How are they supposed to find a homeless shelter?”  
Robin shifts her feet. “They don’t like me very much in the village. They say I’m a no-good lousy thief.”  
Demetria raises her eyebrows. “Are you?”  
“Demetria!”  
“What? Just asking.”  
Robin sighs deeply. “Well, I needed to eat. Have you seen me?” They raise up their shirt to show a scarily thin midriff, ribs sticking out like mountain ranges. They poke their own stomach. “I’m like a twig! An oak twig!”  
I look at Demetria. She knows exactly what I’m trying to say just by meeting my gaze, because she starts shaking her head feverishly.   
“No. No. They’re not like some stray animal you can adopt.”  
“They have nowhere to go.”  
“They said. But we have enough going on in our lives as it is. We can hardly take care of ourselves. How are we supposed to take care of another person?”  
Robin raises their hand as if they are in class. “Excuse me. If I might have a say in my own existence,” they say cheerfully.  
I feel a blush creep towards my cheeks. My entire life I’ve hated it when people talk about me as if I’m not in the room – doing it myself somehow feels worse. I smile at them encouragingly.  
“Sorry. Go on.”  
“Well, I can more or less take care of myself,” they say with a wide smile. “I’m not a helpless pup. All I need is a roof and some supplies, and I’ll be fine.”  
I look at Demetria again. “We do have plenty of space.”  
“Lysandra...”  
“Please? Only for as long as we’re here, and then as soon as the house is sold and we can move again we’ll help her find another place.”  
“We don’t have time for this.”  
Robin taps Demetria on the shoulder. “I’ll help you. With whatever you’re doing here. I’m great with plants – let me take care of the garden for you.”  
I gesture at the green-haired figure in front of me. “See? It’ll be like... a live-in-gardener.”  
Demetria sighs deeply and rubs her eyes. “I’m too tired to argue. Just... go to sleep, all of you, and we’ll talk about this in the morning. I’m going back to bed.”  
She grumpily throws the horse statue on the floor and stomps back to her bedroom. The echo of the slamming door rattles my bones – Robin and I both cringe. Still, I look at them with a tentative smile.  
“Well,” I say, “that’s bought you one more night. I don’t think any of the beds are ready, but do you want to sleep on the couch? I can get you some blankets. And some... socks.”  
Robin smiles, all teeth, which are surprisingly white and pearly.   
“Yes, please!’ They say enthusiastically.   
They surprise me by suddenly lunging at me and crushing me in a loving hug.   
“Thank you,” they breathe.  
I carefully place my hands around their too-tiny waist. “Well, you’re welcome.”  
Slightly dazed, I take them to the salon and find a thick winter blanket in one of the boxes we’ve stacked in the hallway. They curl up on the couch and fall asleep immediately, a smile still playing on their face as they slip away to a world no one can follow them to. I have to stop myself from running a hand through their silky green hair. They seem sweet – and mostly harmless. I can hardly believe I was so afraid of whoever lived in our basement. Perhaps, I think, this whole endeavour will turn out to be less terrible than I had initially thought.  
When I walk back to my bedroom Demetria is leaning against her doorframe. She still seems groggy.  
“They asleep?” she asks somewhat curtly.  
I nod. “Fast asleep. They were exhausted.”  
Demetria rubs her temples. “Why did you have to offer they could stay? Now I’d feel bad sending them away.”  
I stop walking and look at my feet, and then my eyes travel towards the wall to my right. A crooked picture hangs there, the frame slightly cracked. The picture is still visible in the light spilling from Demetria’s room. It’s us, when we were young, our mother and father hugging us with big grins on their faces. In front of this house. The woods around it seem brighter and greener somehow. I look back at my sister.  
“It’s what our parents would have done,” I say softly.  
Demetria stiffens. She looks at the picture, too, and sighs. “Great. Okay. Maybe you’re right. But we’re not our parents. I...” she shakes her head. “Again, we’ll figure this out in the morning. You’re a nightmare sometimes, Lysandra.”  
She steps forward and crushes me in a hug – a nearly desperate one.   
“But you’re my nightmare,” she mumbles into my hair. “Just be careful, okay? We don’t even know this person.”  
“Does that mean they can stay?”  
“I said nothing of the sort.” She steps back into her room. “Goodnight.”  
As soon as the door closes the hallway is dark again. I slowly walk towards my room and slip inside. My bed is eerily illuminated by the moonlight outside. It’s a bit ghostly, but at least I can see where I’m stepping. I fall onto my bed and pull the blankets tight, trying to keep out the biting Scottish cold. Despite this discomfort I do smile. Having helped someone makes me feel better, like this house can hold good things, too. Still giddy about the tiny green-haired figure asleep on the sofa downstairs I finally, finally, also fall asleep. I dream of nothing.


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

That morning I sleep in. When I do finally bring myself to getting up and putting some clothes on, Demetria's bedroom door is still closed. She's more exhausted than I am, it seems. I decide to make her breakfast to apologise for rattling her out of bed last night (and a little bit for accepting a new person into our home with little consideration for her opinions, to be honest). 

I stretch and walk into the salon. "Robin? You want break-"  
My sentence trails off. Nothing. The sofa is empty, though the blanket does lie messily over the side. They have slept here tonight.  
"Robin?"

Nothing in the kitchen, or the hallway. I don't check the living room. With a jolt I realise they probably don't even know what happened there. If they hadn't been in it before, perhaps they went into it now and saw dried-up blood stains and... well, I couldn't really blame them if they decided to flee.

"Robin?" I yell, somewhat louder this time.

Outside, perhaps. I throw open the front door and run around the porch to the back of the house, where the moon goddess statue stands. I stop dead in my tracks.

The garden.

When we first came here only three days ago it was overgrown and wild, filled with thorn bushes and barren patches of land where nothing would grow. Strangling weeds swallowed most of dad's lovingly planted flowerbeds. But now...

"Robin," I say softly. 

They look up from the berry bush they were cradling and smile. "Good morning!"

I take a tentative step forward. Leaves rustle behind me – Demetria has followed me. I hadn't even noticed she was awake. I look at her, eyes wide, and see she is just as taken back as I am. She opens her mouth and closes it again like a fish out of water. We are both at a loss for words.

The garden has changed so much it's like we've stepped into a different world. The weeds have been pulled from the cracks in the pavement, have been removed from the benches and statues and flower beds. The moon goddess is clean again and shines as if starlight has rained onto the cold marble. But more importantly, the garden lives. The rose bushes bloom even though it's so cold the petals should freeze and crack like my breath. The enormous colourful flowers stand out from the dark green branches like blood on snow, and proudly sway in the biting winter wind. My father's flower beds have been lovingly pushed and squeezed back into shape. The berry bushes have been cut into perfect circles and little white flowers carry the promise of fresh fruit. The thorny branches that seemed to swallow the house only yesterday have turned into lush green ivy that actually provide the building with some much-needed colour. It's like the garden came to life overnight. I can even see several colourful insects and a few tentative little birds start making their way onto our grounds again, crawling and hopping around with careful suspicion, as if the ground will wither and die again any moment. But for now...

"Robin," I breathe. "It's beautiful."

They smile so wide I fear their face might split in half. Demetria is still staring, open-mouthed, unable to speak.

"How did you do this?" I ask.

Robin just shrugs. "I have a green thumb. Literally, see?" They grin and hold up their grimy hands. "I was pulling weeds."

"That's not all you've been doing. How did you... this is impossible."

They shrug, blushing, a bit shy all of the sudden. "I like plants. And trees. They listen to me, sort of. They understand. I understand. Except for the apple tree. Even I couldn't get it to bloom again – and I asked to nicely."

I turn around and see the apple tree is indeed the same as it was before. Darkened, ill-looking bark and rotting fruit.

"That's okay," I say as I turn back to face Robin. "What you've done... Robin, it's more than just amazing. You're amazing. Aren't they, Demetria?"

Demetria finally snaps out of her garden-induced trance. "Yes. I... I don't know what to say, Robin. This is more than just a simple talent. It's like magic or something. I can't believe... it looks so vivid."

Robin pushes themselves up and wipes their hand on their trousers. "That was my intention! I hope it makes up for living in your basement."

Demetria laughs softly. "It more than makes up for it. I don't know how to repay you, Robin, it's... it's wonderful. Like it used to be. When... when dad looked after it."

In a sisterly reflex I reach over and grab her hand. She squeezes. I squeeze back.

"Thank you," Demetria says in a whisper.

Robin nods. "You're welcome. Wouldn't a greenhouse be lovely, though? You could grow some tropical plants there. Birds of Paradise, and palm trees and great big ferns like the ones the dinosaurs used to eat. You could keep all kinds of snakes and other little reptiles and drink tea there and read!"

I beam. "That does sound lovely, Robin, but we're not planning on staying here."

They frown. "Why not? It's a nice house."

"We're going to renovate and sell it," Demetria explains. "That's why we're here. We are the owners, but... we want to live in the city where we belong."

"The city," Robin repeats. "But there's hardly any green there."

"Our friends are there." Demetria sighs deeply. "We, uh... don't have great memories in this house. We just want to be rid of it. But that will be much easier with the garden looking so much better!"

Robin softly kicks a rock. It rolls into a flamingo-shaped bush. "That's not why I made it look pretty. I did it for you. What if someone terrible comes to live here? They wouldn't deserve a nice garden."

Demetria and I look at each other. Neither of us know what we're supposed to say here; the garden looks lovely, lovelier than it ever has before, maybe even better than when dad took care of it. It looks picture-perfect. But... well, Robin has done it for us. It's a personal gift. I suddenly feel bad about wanting to sell it. But we do so need the money, and the house still gives me nightmares.

I smile at them. "Robin, we can't stay here forever. And, well, neither can you, but we can all make sure someone amazing comes to live here. Maybe a nice family with sweet young children, or a nice older couple."

Their face lightens up a little. "Oh, old people are sweet," they say happily. Their eyes suddenly glimmer with ill-conceived mischief. "Except for the one next door. Have you met her?"

"Ilsa?" I shudder. "She's awful. Blatantly told us we should move and cut the apple tree down."

Demetria nods. "I was going to go by today, but... well, after tonight I don't think I have the energy for it."

She still looks tired. She stretches, takes one wonderous look around the garden, and turns to go back inside. I look back at Robin. They still look a little defeated, but much less than before. I smile at them and lay my hand on their shoulder.

"Hey. Don't worry," I say softly. "It'll be fine. You'll find a home after us – we'll help you. And besides, we're not leaving yet. Renovating this house will take a while. Why don't you come inside to eat breakfast?"  
They seem to live up a bit at the idea of food and hurriedly follow me inside. Demetria is already slapping the coffee maker, trying to get it to work. I make everyone simple yoghurt-fruit-granola bowls with way too much honey. Robin eats theirs as if it's the last meal they'll ever eat; Demetria stares at them for a little while, and then, mumbling to herself, gets up and makes Robin a second helping. I smile to myself. My sister has a big heart when it comes to it. And to be fair, Robin is an endearing character. They entertain us by trying to balance a huge blueberry on their pointy little nose for about five whole minutes; their face is covered in streaks of vanilla yoghurt by the end of it. I bite back a promiscuous remark and, giggling, push her another mug of coffee.

"I'm not sure they need the caffeine," Demetria mumbles.

I grin. "You do, though. Did you decide to crawl through a swamp after I went to sleep last night? You look exhausted."

"Thanks. It's the lack of sleep." She stretches again, some of her bones crackling and popping like cereal in milk. "I'm fresh out of melatonin."

My smile falls. "You said you'd stop taking it. You can't be dependent on it."

"It's just hard to sleep here."

"Right," I mumble and crush a strawberry with my spoon for no particular reason. "I do understand that."

We finish breakfast. Robin runs off into the garden on a slightly worrying caffeine high and sets back to work there. My sister continues tidying and cleaning the salon. I mumble something about changing into the right clothes and hurry back upstairs, to my room, to sit down for a bit. Seeing the garden back in its full original glory does more with me than I would like to admit. Dad... he would have been happy, to see it like this. I know Demetria feels the same.

Speaking of my sister – hearing she's taking her melatonin nightly again worries me. A little while ago she had a terrible insomnia-induced period in Brighton, when the bills started to pile up without end, and as a result she had taken melatonin every night. She became dependent on it, couldn't sleep without. The nights when she was out of the little white pills were the worst. She couldn't sleep. She wandered through the house like a restless spirit looking for her murderer. She was groggy and grumpy all day after. When she did sleep she had nightmares. Still, I helped her get rid of it; tea that helped you sleep, ear plugs, comfortable new blankets, staying in the same room to make sure someone was nearby if the bad dreams came. It took about two months. The idea of going through the same pain-staking and emotionally draining process again worries me. Deeply.

Normally I am highly against breaking into another person's private space. I just have to see... have to see how bad it is. If it's just one or two pills or if she's taken three packets, if she has a stock for the coming few months. Cursing my own curiosity I put on my working jeans and ratty white shirt and sneak across the hallway towards Demetria's bedroom door. It's not locked. The lock's probably rusted beyond use or broken.

"Sorry," I whisper to no one in particular, and slip inside.

Just as messy as I'd expected. I prefer the space I live and sleep in to be organised and neat but my sister apparently does not feel the same. It's a mess. Discarded clothes and shoes and books everywhere, desk covered in thick volumes and loose papers, a few empty water bottles and candy bar wrappers scattered around the chair and desk. Resisting the urge to start cleaning immediately, I carefully walk towards her nightstand.

The wind picks up momentarily through the half-opened window, as if blowing as a warning to back off. I glare at the greyish sky outside and crouch next to the bed. The nightstand isn't locked either. I slowly pull open the bottom drawer. Nothing there except for an ancient childhood drawing she made, probably when she was about six or seven. A crude outline of our parents, smiling big happy cartoonish smiles. Strange trees that resemble stick insects that have been in a traffic accident stand in the background. Some of them almost seem to have faces in them.

"Always the talented one," I mutter with a slight smile. Even a few sloppy lines on cheap paper can remind me of easier times – distant times.

Upper drawer, then. I pull it open and the first thing I see is a small packet of melatonin. To my great relief only two have been used. That's good – but I'd better keep an eye on it. I'm about to close the drawer again when I accidentally notice something else, something the medicine packet was placed on. Pictures. Thinking they must be old family photos I carefully take them out. 

At first glance they seem like simple photos, boring ones even; trees, plants, fields, nothing but nature scenes. I would have put them back without thinking about them too much, hadn't it been for the angry circles and lines and arrows scribbled onto the smooth surface with aggressive red permanent marker. I hold them in the pale morning light spilling through the window and squint my eyes. Something seems to peer out between the branches of an old oak tree. Eyes, deep yellow like Autumn leaves. Then again it could just be leaves. In another picture the way tree roots twist almost makes it seem like there is a slender hand curling its fingers around the bark. Then again, it could just be a strange shadow on the moss. I turn the picture around. Written in a handwriting I don't recognise, it says Evidence 42. Each picture has a number. I find more in a brown envelope under the initial small pile of photos, all picturing 'evidence' of something or someone moving through a forest or a field unseen. They unnerve me, but I don't understand why my sister has them in her nightstand drawer. I know I have to stop going through her personal belongings but as per usual my curiosity gets the best of me and I lift out the bigger, sturdier object which lay carefully tucked away on the bottom of the drawer. A journal. I know this could be her diary, I know this could be and probably is deeply personal, but... well, the pictures somehow gave me a bad feeling. I open it and whisper the words out loud, as I often do when I read on my own in a room.

"Local articles say murder – police reluctant to say," I mumble, my frown deepening by the second. "Investigations in the region lead nowhere but it was given up quite quickly – out of fear?"

When I turn the page a yellowed newspaper article flutters to the ground. I throw the journal on the bed and unfold the fragile paper. I cringe a bit when I see the headline and the picture I recognise so well. My parents, smiling into the camera in front of the house I'm in right now. My sister and I have been cut off – we weren't important to the journalist who wrote the article. The date: one day after my parents were murdered. 

"Hermit couple found brutally murdered in own home." I sigh deeply. "Well, at least it's accurate."

To my great relief there's no crime scene pictures. I haven't seen this particular article before. I've seen many, since the death of these two secluded people shook the entire region, but not this one. The scribble in the corner – this time I do recognise my sister's handwriting – tells me it's from the Applefary newspaper. I didn't even know the tiny little village at the bottom of the hill had a newspaper. Perhaps it's more like a flyer the old greying inhabitants pass around for the latest gossip. In that case this particular journalist must have had the best day of his life, on the worst day of my life.

I quickly read through the article. It's a lot of the usual: my parents' names, the gruesome crime scene details, a short mention of Demetria and I because we found the bodies and were deeply upset (which is the understatement of the millennium). A lot of panicked statements from cousin Diane. There's even a black-and-white picture of her, elegant and refined as always, even with eyes swollen from crying and running mascara. She was more than happy to talk to the police, to the journalists, to anyone, really. I suppose it was her way to cope, though I can't say I've ever been grateful for it. Yet something is different about this article: the writer interviewed the locals from Applefary, who apparently had a lot to say about what happened on this hill.

"I'm not surprised," I read softly. "because they always pushed their luck by living there. The trees don't lie."

What? The statement from Hannah Campbell, a 'village resident', makes little sense to me. Perhaps she thought it was a bear who broke into our house, though the police statement seems pretty clear to me. 

"It's a shame. Such a lovely couple. Selus and Lyta Midsummer did not come from their hill often, but when they did, it was like a visit from another world. They were always kind to me. I know the police won't find who did it, but I hope they are at peace."

That one I like more, though the blatant lack of faith in law and order does seem a bit ill-spirited. Lachlan Anderson – a young boy then, only fifteen. He must be over thirty now. I wonder if he still lives in Applefary. It does not seem like a highly riveting place for a young man to grow up.

"All this death proves," I continue reading, "is that sometimes two worlds simply do not go together. That is all I'll say. Those who know what I mean know what I mean."

Dolores Anderson. Lachlan's mother, it seems. The final statement is anonymous, but the most crude.

"Good riddance. That folk should have remained where they are."

The idea of someone talking about my parents, my sweet parents, makes me tear up immediately. I quickly fold the article back up and stuff it between the journal pages. Why would my sister have this? It's awful. I thought we had both decided to keep that part of our lives in the past where it belongs. But as I leaf through the journal I realise she may not have done that. It's an investigation journal. Theories and suggestions, each crazier than the next, all written in my sister's frantic hand, almost feverish in how sloppy it is. Demetria taking a bit too much melatonin seems the least of my worries now. The journal accuses people I don't know, serial killers from all over the country who were active at the time, all kinds of animals and creatures, and, strangest of all, a set of mythological creatures that I know don't even exist. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, faeries. Nothing that makes even a little bit of sense to me – and yet Demetria seems very hung up on the idea that something supernatural broke into our home and tore our parents to pieces. My heart beats faster and faster with worry and fear. Has my sister been hiding something from me, a part of herself that she should not keep hidden at all? I could have helped her.

"Lysandra?"

I yelp and drop the journal. When I look around I see my sister standing in the doorway, trowel in hand. She sees her personal belongings on my lap – the journal, the pictures, the melatonin – and her eyes seem to turn a shade darker.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

I shift uncomfortably. I have seen my sister angry many times before, but hardly ever has it been directed at me. She marches forward and snatches the journal away from me. The newspaper article falls out, along with some others and pictures, notes and scribbles. I leap up and try to gather them, but Demetria pushes me away.  
“Why are you sneaking around my room, huh? Does fucking privacy mean nothing to you anymore?”  
I take a step back and hold up my hands.  
“Demetria, listen, I was just worried-“  
“No! You know, you... you... I’m supposed to be able to trust you, Lysandra, and this is none of your business!”  
A rare flare of anger surges up and I cross my arms.  
“Isn’t it? Isn’t it really? They’re my parents, too, Demetria, and we’re here together, and... well, what is all this? Why do you even have that article? It’s awful, it’s just...”  
She groans. “Oh, great, you read it. You know, that’s why I didn’t tell you this before we came here. I know you couldn’t handle it.”  
“Handle what?”  
“Talking about them again! Even considering that their death... well, it was crazy, it’s still crazy, okay? I can’t just let that go!”  
I kick the bedframe. My head pounds. My vision blurs – whether it is because I’m crying or because I’m enraged is hard to tell.  
“You think I let it go? You think I’m over it? I’m never going to be over that! You think I’d just forget about them? Like... like it was nothing? Like they meant nothing?”  
Now I am crying. I hate it, I hate that I can’t fight without tears streaming down my face. My anger just triggers something in me, a part of me that hates fighting, that hates confrontation, that hates feeling upset.  
Demetria’s face softens ever so slightly when she sees I’m crying. She takes a few deep breaths, some of them shuddering, as if she, too, is holding back tears.  
“I didn’t say that,” she says a bit calmer. “But I don’t appreciate you just going through my things.”  
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I didn’t... I was worried. Okay? About the melatonin. What happened before, I... I didn’t... I had to know.”  
“You could have asked.”  
“Right. Yes. Sorry. I’m not... I’m just not thinking straight. This house, I... I can’t... I can’t think.”  
Demetria sighs. Most of the anger seems to leave her body and she sits down on the bed, fiddling with the journal.  
“I know. It’s not good for me, either.”  
“Well,” I say as I carefully sit down next to her, afraid she’ll explode again, “you seem to have settled in quite easily. It’s only been a few days and... I don’t know. You just seem less bothered.”  
“Don’t mistake what you see on the outside for my actual emotions.”  
“I know, I know, it’s just... strange to see.”  
She curls her fingers around my arm and rubs it with her thumb in slow, comforting circles, a gesture she has accidentally picked up from out mother years and years ago without even noticing.  
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”  
I sigh. “I just feel like we came here with different goals, or something. I just want to be rid of this house.” I nod at the journal. “What’s that all about?”  
She opens the journal with surprising tenderness and care and runs her fingers along her own handwriting, tracing the letters as if writing it anew. She considers something. I can tell by the way she bites her bottom lip, by the way she squints her eyes slightly and looks at her own hands.  
“We came here,” she says very slowly, “with different goals. I do want to sell the house, don’t get me wrong. I don’t like this place. I hate it. I want it out of our sight, out of our lives.”  
I push one of the old pictures around with my foot. She is silent for a while but I’m too afraid to interrupt her, afraid she’ll pull back and not tell me anything.  
“This journal,” she says so softly it’s almost a whisper, “is my research. From the last five years. I’ve been doing this since I was twenty, when I found these photographs on a vintage market and recognised the place we grew up.”  
“What market?”  
“The hipster one.”  
“That doesn’t help me.”  
“The hipster one with the really good sugar cane juice.”  
“Oh, that one.”  
She picks one of the pictures that fell up and shows it to me. I hadn’t seen it before; it was tucked between the pages like the newspaper article. It’s a landscape photo. Woods stand proud and tall in the foreground; in the back, hills, green sloping hills, and...  
“Our house.” Demetria points at a tiny speck on the photo, right on top of the hill. “Years and years ago. I just thought it was neat, but look at the back.”  
She flips the photo. The same alien handwriting, sloppy and quick with a lot of exclamation marks.  
“The house that wasn’t there.” I frown. “That doesn’t make any sense.”  
“That’s what I thought. So I asked the salesman.” She flips through her journal, more frantic than I’ve ever seen her before. “He was from nearby. Not Applefary, but a village not too far away. He said that... people told stories about our house. Stories we’ve never heard because we hardly ever left, remember? We were home-schooled. We only went to the village to get supplies or buy new clothes. So people told stories.”  
“Well, that’s what people do in these small villages. People are bored.”  
“No, no, this is different.” She feverishly taps the notes she took as if that will hammer her point home somehow. “These stories... they’ve been around for a long time. This land is old, Lysandra, older than... well, anything. Things live in the forest.”  
“Like bears?”  
“No. Like... supernatural things.”  
I stare at her. “Don’t tell me you actually believe that.”  
“There are so many stories about it. It’s in the air here, these... mythologies. These legends.”  
“And that’s what they are. Myths. Stories. They’re not real.”  
She shakes her head again and throws the journal on my lap. “There’s too many. Did you know people don’t go into these woods? Ever? They’re afraid, Lysandra, afraid of what lives there, and our parents built a house smack-dab in the middle.”  
I shrug, “They were just more down-to-earth. Smarter. Less prone to believing in fairy tales and such.”  
“No. No. It has to be like this. Because if it isn’t, I... I just wasted five years.” Her eyes become a bit glassy. “I refuse to believe it was all for nothing. That’s why I’m here, Lysandra. To find out the truth. To find... answers. What happened to our parents wasn’t just a random serial killer nobody ever heard from and nobody ever caught. Don’t you think it’s strange the police gave up this easily? They were afraid, too. They were afraid that if they dug too deep, hands might pop out of the earth and drag them under.”  
I stare at her. “Did you... what kind of meds are you on that I don’t know about?”  
“See, this is exactly what I mean. You don’t... this is serious. I take it seriously. I... I went into town a few days ago, when our vacuum cleaner broke – well, it didn’t, but I needed to go out on my own – I went into town to look around. People are so strange. They’re so suspicious. When you ask them about the forest they slam shut. They refuse to talk. It’s like they’re afraid something will come get them in the night.”  
“And you believe that?”  
Demetria shrugs. “I... I don’t know what to believe. I... our parents were a bit strange, okay? And, see, if you look at older pictures – this is a picture from the exact same point of view, only six months before. Look. Look at this.”  
She practically shoves the picture into my face. I grab her hand to make sure she doesn’t actually push the paper into my eye and hold it into the light.  
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”  
The hill has no house on it. In fact, it is full of large, ancient trees, like the rest of the hills surrounding our house. I frown.  
“Maybe the dates were a mistake.”  
“No. It’s... they talk about it in Applefary. They were just hills, just woods that nobody ever went into, and then one day... there were no bulldozers. No trucks with lumber. No builders who came to help. Nothing. And then on a regular weekday like any other, bam, our house is there. Like... like it came out of nowhere. Like magic.”  
“I mean, how often do you think someone came to check if there was a house here?” I ask, but it’s not a very convincing question.  
Demetria shakes her head. “You can see our house from the village. Easily. It was... insane, it drove people in the village insane.”  
“Okay. What does that have to do with our parents?”  
She closes the journal and tenderly puts it on the bed. “Everything. Nothing. I don’t know. I just know that... people whisper. I want to find out if the whispers are true.”  
“What whispers?”  
She shuffles her feet, pushing the pictures on the floor around like I did before, and sighs another deep, endless sigh.  
“Whispers about us. Our parents. About who they were. How they got here. The house, and what lives around it. I want to talk to our neighbours. I want to go into the woods.”  
No.  
“You can’t go into the woods,” I say quickly. “You can’t.”  
“Why not?”  
“It’s dangerous. Aunt Maeve said so. And... so do I. Don’t go into it, don’t, please, you can’t, it’s not safe-“  
“But why?” Demetria grabs my hands and gives me a penetrating stare. “Why are they dangerous? We were children, we never asked questions. We never asked why the woods were dangerous. We just accepted they were.”  
“Don’t go on your own, then,” I beg.  
She shoots me a hesitating smile. “Come with me. It’s like you said, they were your parents, too. Come with me. You don’t have to answer now,” she says quickly when she sees me open my mouth to respond, “but just think on it.”  
She pulls me close and kisses my forehead, and then leaves once more, probably to go bother Robin about the garden. I remain seated on the bed and look at the journal my sister pushed into my hands. Once again I go through the pages, calmer this time. It is a bit frenzied and feverish at times, but concise, and a lot of effort has obviously gone into it. I can’t deny it hurts me ever so slightly that she has done all of this without me – without confiding in me. So she thought I couldn’t handle it. Well... perhaps. But now that she thinks I can’t I have to prove I can, even if it isn’t true. I hate it when assumptions are made about me. If the assumptions are true I still hate them.  
Going into the woods, however... I get up and look out of the window. There they stand, towering tall and threatening. The trees I fear so much. For what reason? I can’t remember what my aunt told me, not really. I remember the stories she told, the stories my uncle came up with, scared me so much sometimes that I couldn’t sleep even while my sister was snoring soundly next to me. The logical part of me tells me there is nothing to be afraid of. Still I can’t forget about the figure I saw sneaking between the trees the other night. The pictures with eyes, hands and faces in them don’t help. And the ominous warnings from our neighbour... she might be a crazy lady, but she might also be a crazy lady who just so happens to be right.  
My parents went into the woods quite often, though, and they never seemed afraid. They took Demetria and I with them to show us the way nature worked, to show us their favourite spots. Was it that love which caught up with them and eventually meant their end, or was it just some crazy person with an axe? The last option seems the most realistic. It never really bothered me that the murder wasn’t solved – I was just glad to leave it in the past. I thought Demetria was the same. I thought we were here to put it behind us together and sell this house to let go of what haunts us.  
I accidentally land on quite a personal page. It’s recent – six days ago, to be exact, shortly before we came to this house. It expresses her worries, her concerns. The last line is written in clear, careful handwriting. Purposeful.  
“I hope I can find someone to help me in Applefary,” I read out loud, my voice echoing through the dusty room. “I can’t do this alone.”  
With a sigh deep enough to match Demetria’s previous one I close the journal and put it back in the nightstand drawer. I carefully gather all the pictures she found at the market, the newspaper articles she cut out and all the notes Demetria made, and add them to the drawer. Only the melatonin I put on the nightstand with a note that reads ‘just be careful’. I walk out of the room – calm, collected.  
My sister is in the garden as I expected, helping Robin pull weeds and cut roses. She looks up, a thousand questions in her eyes.  
“Everything okay? You look a bit... spacey.”  
I crouch down next to her and wrap my arms around her. She tenses at first, but then relaxes in my embrace, her fingers digging into my shoulders. Yes, I want to show her I’m not as bad at handling difficult things as she thinks; yes, I’m partly helping her out of spite, which turned out to be a great motivator throughout my life. But...  
“You’re my sister. I love you. I’ve got you,” I breathe into her raven-black hair which always smells like her Lily-of-the-Valley shampoo. “You’re not alone.”  
We untangle. She frowns and smiles at the same time, a confused mask.  
“It’s always good to hear that,” she says softly, “but why this speech now? I wasn’t crying, was I?”  
I roll my eyes and shake my head. If anything, I feel like I’m going to cry soon. My emotions do always get the best of me.  
“No, you weren’t. You won’t have to.” I grab her hands and squeeze. “I’ll help you.”


	7. Chapter Seven

_Demetria_

My sister has decided to help me. It’ll be hard to admit out loud, but it fills me with an incredibly amount of relief. It’s been hard to work in this house without talking to her like I normally would. I just hope she is right – I hope she is able to handle the answers that come with the questions I’m prepared to ask. I need to find out what happens to my parents. To our parents. For years and years it has bothered me, eaten away at me. Finding those pictures five years ago was a blessing, though it might turn out to be a curse as we make our way into the forest.

I don’t know what to believe.

The woods are old – this I know. Some people believe it’s all you need to know to stay away. I know my sister fears them. I know I should, too. Somehow they call me. I feel them, the voices, the whispers, crawling along my skin each night, asking me to come see, to come dance, to come sing. The apple my sister found could have been a message. This morning I found fresh berries under my pillow, and willow leaves in my hair. It never happened when we lived in the city. 

I loved Brighton. It was lovely, I made some friends, I made some more-than-friends. But the parks, the pebble beaches and the endless ocean nevertheless could never make up for the magical woods from my childhood. The feeling of soil between my fingers. Moss against my cheeks. The smell of wet leaves and forest fruits peeking out from bushes like drops of fresh blood. It calls me. I don’t know what, but it calls me. Every day I want to wander into the woods and lay my hands against tree bark and listen. Though I do have to admit the woods here seem... sinister. Different to what I remember.

At least Lysandra is on my side to explore with me now.

I help Robin for a bit and then leave them on their own. They seem at home in the garden, as if being close to nature calms then down the same way it does me. I wasn’t   
sure about the green-haired stranger at first, but they seem... well, lovely, and that is not a word I use lightly. The way they tenderly curl their hands around each rose, barely touching the petals, reminds me so much of my father it physically hurts. The flowers seem better after Robin has been around them. Like they have magic in their hands.

Magic, like... like woodland creatures have.

I wanted to go into town today to see what the people in Applefary can tell me. I feel like it will be slightly useless, but you never know. Perhaps Lysandra can come with me now. I can’t deny it will feel good to have someone to rant to. I have so many theories, so many ideas, and all of them have only been contained between the pages of my notebook. Until now, that is.

Yet my relief that my secret is out does not cancel out my anger about my sister breaking into my room. She doesn’t have to take care of me. We’re twins; there is technically an older sibling (it’s Lysandra) but there should not be a big-sister-little-sister dynamic. If there could be one, I would be the older. I know this.

I get dressed properly and try to untangle my hair. It’s a lovely black colour, the colour my mother had, and long and wavy. Many people have been jealous of it. Yet it’s heavy and thick and dries and splits easily. Taking care of it has been an ongoing nightmare in my life; my sister is the lucky one. Her whitish hair is always smooth and luscious, even if she hasn’t washed it in ages.

I spot the white mane in the salon, cleaning the final few spots. Her lips are scrunched up in a strange pout, a slight frown on her brow. She’s thinking. 

“I really don’t think that potential buyers are going to check the bottom of old perfume bottles,” I say.

She puts the empty bottle down. It used to belong to our grandmother – it’s vintage, and mostly there for decoration, and Lysandra has been scrubbing some grime off the bottom for about two days now.

“You never know.” She gets up, wiping her hands on her dirty jeans. “Something up?”

“I’m going to Applefary. Want to come with?”

Her frown deepens. “What for?”

“To ask around. Some people who made comments in those articles must still be alive. I want to find them.”

She bites her bottom lip, hesitant. Lysandra is many things but she’s not confrontational, and she hates asking things directly, which I’ve never had a problem with. I hope she won’t change her mind about this.

I cross my arms. “You don’t have to go with.” 

“No, it’s fine,” she says quickly. “Let me get my things. I can’t go into the village looking like I live in an attic.”

“Fair enough.” I throw her one of the rags which hangs to dry over the sofa. “There’s cobwebs in your hair. I’ll see you at the car.”

I leave her to fix herself up and go downstairs. Our rickety star stands on the weeds-swallowed driveway, looking just as close to collapsing as our parental house does. It’s rusty and smells vaguely like cheap granola bars but it’s ours, and it’s taken us this far, even with a trailer attached to it. The trailer now stands abandoned at the edge of the driveway. It still has a box in it. I hope it’s empty because it tends to rain at night.

While Lysandra gets changed I go through my phone to see what I’ve missed. My sister tends to take a while when getting ready – she cares a great deal about her appearance, especially her clothes. I’m alright with it. I know my simple jeans-and-t-shirt combination would turn few heads at Paris Fashion Week, but it’s comfortable. The only jewellery I wear is the locket to which my sister has the twin. We carry each other’s pictures in them, and a little folded note from the other. I don’t know what mine says. It’s in case of an emergency and I’ve never had an emergency that extreme, if you don’t count the fact that I saw my parents literally torn to pieces in my living room when I was nine.

Messages from friends. None from family. I don’t understand why they were so upset when we told them we were going to fix and sell the house, but I can’t bring myself to care. It’s our lives, after all.

One message from Hailey. Even seeing her name pop up on my screen brings back a thousand memories. I miss her, even though she hurt me so – I would never admit it to anyone, not even my sister, but I miss Hailey. I do. We were together for over two years and I thought it’d be forever. Turns out I was wrong. The move to Applefary could not have come at a better time.

In her message she asks me how I am, and how the house is. I decide to ignore her. It’s the healthiest option. Luckily Lysandra comes walking towards me, a welcome distraction, and I put my phone away.

“Ready?”

“Yes. Are you okay? You look miles away?”

I shrug. “Hailey sent me a message. No big deal. I’m driving.”

Before she can answer I get into the car and put on my seatbelt. It takes a little while for Lysandra to enter, and when she does, she looks mildly upset.

“What do you mean, no big deal? She has no right to just text you like this. As if nothing happened.”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why haven’t you blocked her?”

I sigh deeply. “Because. Reasons. Can you put your seatbelt on?”

“’Reasons’ is a terrible excuse.”

“Your face is a terrible excuse.”

“Very mature. Just block her,” she mutters and finally pulls her seatbelt around her.

I glare at her and start the car. “We’re not discussing this.”

She mumbles something to herself but decides not to respond. I release the handbrake and allow the car to roll down the driveway carefully, careful not to hit the crude iron fence that stands around my parents’ old estate. I feel like it might collapse if I look at it for too long, and then what will keep the monsters out? Perhaps our apparently strange neighbour will step onto our grounds and chop the apple tree down.

Our neighbour. Right. I still have to talk to her. She didn’t live here before my parents; my parents were the first ones brave enough to build a house on the hill. I can’t find any record of when she came in. And her house is huge. There is no way she lives there on her own, especially since the garden is surprisingly well-groomed and I haven’t seen a gardener around.

As we get closer to Applefary I speak less and think more. Lysandra notices my silence but allows me to get lost in it, as long as I still watch the road. Silences between us have never been uncomfortable. We understand each other well enough after about twenty-five years of living together. 

I go over my theories once again, moving my lips without making any sounds as if I’m whispering to a little universe which hangs before my face. A secret I share with no one but nothingness. 

Theory one: a serial killer that was active in the area. It’s a long shot. The man was known for using an axe, but he always targeted young teenage couples, and always outside, never in their houses. Besides, our parents were found with horns jammed into their heads. When I hacked into police records – laughably easy – I found out they were made out of brown and green willow branches and broken violets. That particular serial killer had never done anything of the sort. Charles Greeves, his name was. He was arrested a few years ago and confessed to all his crimes – but not to murdering our parents.

Theory two: a crazy person from Applefary. There is no real strong motive and most people that live there are old and grey or young and apathetic. I see no reason why – but you never know in these small villages. It’s a weak theory, but I’ll still investigate it. I can’t sleep otherwise.

Theory three: mysterious family. Lysandra and I only know the family we have on our mother’s side. Our father’s side is a complete mystery – we’ve never seen them, and our mother’s family doesn’t talk about them. Perhaps there is a story there we’ve never been told about. The problem is that I have no way of investigating this.   
According to records our father’s parents died in a terrible car crash. There is no record of any other family, which is suspicious to say the least.

Theory four: something in the forest. Someone in the forest. Old stories go around here, stories that can be found online or in newspaper articles that were never supposed to leave Applefary in the first place. Stories of horned people that live between the trees, creatures that take you in your sleep if you doze off beneath a fruit tree, stories of creatures so beautiful and strange one could go insane trying to find them in the woods. Creatures that are older than the stars.

“Do you believe in faeries?” I suddenly ask out loud, more to myself than to my sister, but she answers anyway.

She frowns. “Not particularly. Why?”

“Stories. Just stories.”

“Do you think those stories have anything to do with our parents?”

“There is a chance.”

She nods slowly, worry dancing in her eyes like starlight over the ocean. “Well, don’t... don’t hold out too much hope. I mean, what are the chances? Someone would have noticed, right?”

I shrug. “No idea. They seem secretive.”

“They?”

“The faeries.”

“Right,” she says, elongating the vowel to comic lengths. “I don’t think pretty little winged beings hacked our parents to pieces, Lysandra.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” I snap. “Besides, these faeries are not like the ones in sweet little children’s stories. People fear them.”

She doesn’t respond.

“You don’t believe me.”

“It’s a bit outlandish,” she says tentatively, “but I’m willing to, uh... help you consider all angles.”

“You think I’m crazy.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to say it.” I’m aware my tone is significantly colder than it was before, but I despise not being taken seriously. “I know you well enough. Just keep an open mind. That’s all I ask.”

“Okay, okay.”

Silence falls, a bit of an uncomfortable one this time. To my great relief we’ve reached the tiny little village. The sign is old and the paint is fading, but it still says ‘Applefary’ in clunky red letters. One supermarket, one pharmacy, one bakery, one church, and three pubs. Of course. There are very few people out on the streets. It’s cold out – it wouldn’t surprise me if we get snow soon. I miss Brighton’s relatively gentle climate. Thick sweaters always smother me and I hate wearing wool.

I park the car next to the abandoned post office. If people want to send a letter they have to go a few towns over. I couldn’t live here, not forever, and the idea of selling the house and leaving seems more and more attractive the longer we’re here. But I have a mystery to solve, first.

“What’s the plan?”

We wander around the streets, hidden into our coats, our scarves snugly tucked around our necks in an attempt to keep out the biting wind.

“Pub?” I suggest.

“Bit early for drinking.”

“To ask around, you walnut.”

She laughs. “Alright. There’s a pub on the corner there – you can go first, Miss Marple.”

I glare at her and push through the rickety wooden door, which creaks and groans like an old god awakening. A welcome gust of warmth envelops me. I smell spilt ale and cheap fried food; I see the faded neon from an old pinball machine and the dull greens and blacks from dusty wine and whiskey bottles left on the shelf. The floor sticks slightly from spilt drink and the walls are completely covered in black-and-white and sepia pictures, old rewards, paintings gifted by patrons and old beer signs. A classic pub. According to the creaking sign outside it’s called _The Little Rooster._

I had almost expected a movie scene – everyone looking up from their drinks to glare at us, the outsiders, but to my happy surprise the grey-haired woman behind the bar looks up and gives me a kind smile. She has young eyes, glittering and mischievous, back bent from carrying too many crates and kegs. 

“What a terrible cold, eh?” she says chipperly.

The other patrons remain bent over their ale and hot coco. I breathe a secret sigh of relief and pull my sister to the bar, where we sit down.

“Terrible,” I agree. “Might be snow soon.”

She shakes her head. “Oh, no. You’d be able to feel it in the air.”

“Oh. Well, I just moved here.”

Her bushy white eyebrows go up immediately. “You? You two? Such young, fashionable people? What on earth brings you to Applefary?”

“We lived in Brighton before, but we grew up here. We moved when we were nine. We’re just here to take care of some family business.”

She nods understandingly and puts down the Guinness glass she’d been cleaning. “Well, family is important. Can I get you two anything to drink, love?”

She definitely knows how to make guests feel welcome. Her smile is warm and inviting, and despite her age her body is strong, knots of muscles protruding from her sleeves. She knows her business but her haircut is elegant and precise and her nails are meticulously kept short, sturdy and clean. I decide I like her.

“I’d just like a coffee, please,” I say. “You, Lysandra?”

She nods a bit shyly. “The same.”

The woman behind the bar winks. “Anything to keep out the cold. You two sit tight and make yourself comfortable, dears. I’ll have that coffee ready for you soon.”

She hobbles to the coffee machine and sets to work. It’s warm in the pub – Lysandra and I soon take off our coats and scarves and gloves, carefully draping them over our stools. I look around once more. The patrons are softly chatting amongst themselves, playing chess or checkers, reading the newspaper or are watching some sort of sports match on the ancient little television that stands perched on a little oak shelf nailed to the wall. The light comes from a few dusty chandeliers and real-life candles, a fire hazard if I ever saw one. 

The woman behind the bar soon returns with two cups of piping hot coffee. It’s cheap and a bit burnt, but made with love. She puts them down in front of us.

“There you go, dears,” she says kindly. “Drink up before you freeze your Southern noses off.”

I laugh. “Thank you very much.”

She pushes one cup towards my quiet sister. “There. You look ice-cold, love. Lysandra, wasn’t it? Such a lovely name.”

My sister gives her a kind smile. “Thank you.”

“I’m Agnes.”

“Demetria,” I offer.

“Demetria and Lysandra.” A slight frown appears on her wrinkled brow. “That somehow seems familiar to me. You lived here when you were young, did you say?”

Well, I knew it would have to come to this. There was no way I could have investigated without telling anyone about who my sister and I are. I just hope her kindness won’t vanish as soon as she finds out we’re the children of the people who lived on top of the hill in the house that mysteriously appeared overnight. I haven’t even drunk my coffee yet. Perhaps I should quickly before she throws it into my face or something.

Lysandra looks at me with alarm in her eyes, mouthing something which is either don’t tell her or dog hair fur. Probably the first.

“Our parents used to live in the house up the hill,” I say softly, as if sharing an important secret. “We’re here to renovate it.”

To me great relief Agnes does not become upset. Instead her face melts into that of a concerned grandmother, full of pity and worry and kindness. She lays one wrinkled hand on mine. I ignore the coffee I spill in the process.

“Poor dears,” she says, just as softly, and grabs Lysandra’s hand, too. “Such a terrible thing that happened.”

“It really was,” my sister mumbles. Her cheeks have turned red. She hates being the centre of any kind of attention. 

Agnes nods warmly. “Awful. Let me get you two something.”

She lets go of our hands and disappears into the kitchen behind the bar. I look at Lysandra and smile.

“See? Nothing happened. We’re fine.”

“We got lucky. Just because she’s an extremely kind person...”

“She might be able to help us,” I interrupt. “She’s probably lived here for ages – oh, she’s coming back. Look normal.”

Lysandra proceeds to look as suspicious as I’ve ever seen anyone look. I supress the urge to roll my eyes and give Agnes a smile. She sets down a cracked plate with some enormous chunky cookies and an old rusty tin box that once contained cigars. I hope it does not still hold cigars. I’ve never been such a smoker.

“Home-made,” she says, and pushes the cookies towards us. “Eat something. You’re as thin as twigs. You can take some home, too. I shouldn’t eat them, but I always do.”

My sister immediately tears up and mumbles an almost inaudible thanks. I’m more interested in the mysterious tin box.

“What’s that?”

“Oh.” Agnes’s smile widens. “I hope it doesn’t bring back bad memories, but I was hoping you two might like to see it. I never throw anything away.”

She opens the tin box and pushes it over the bar in our direction. It’s full of old pictures and newspaper clippings, a less macabre version of my investigation journal. My mouth falls open as soon as I see the first photograph.

“Your parents often came here,” Agnes explains. “They were such lovely people. They helped me so much after my husband died. This is them, see? They loved playing cards in the corner over there.”

The faded picture indeed shows our parents, Lyta and Selus Midsummer, smiling at the camera with playing cards in their hands. My father drinks wine, my mother a dark stout, and they sit beneath the enormous colourful painting of a rooster which still hangs on the pub’s ancient walls. I look at the table. It’s empty and a few extra paintings and postcards have been added on the wall but other than that nothing has changed. It’s strange to imagine my parents sitting there, not a care in the world. Happy, healthy, alive. A deck of playing cards still lies on the table as if it is waiting for them to come back and continue whatever game they were playing.

“Oh, darling,” I hear Agnes say behind me. “Are you alright?”

Lysandra is crying. Very softly, but tears do run down her cheeks. She angrily rubs her nose.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m sorry.”

I curl my fingers around her wrist and smile. “Nothing to apologise for. Are you alright?”

“Yes. Just... I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising or I’m going to pour this coffee down your sweater.”

She laughs through her quiet tears and nudges me softly. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’d have to clean the floor after,” Agnes says with a child-like grin, “so please refrain from attacking your sister. You can look through those pictures if you like. If it’s too much I can keep them here for you until you’re ready.”

“You’re really too kind.”

My sister nods in agreement. “Definitely. Especially since people didn’t really like our parents here.”

Subtle as always.

Agnes frowns. “What makes you say that?”

Lysandra shrugs. “Stories. Newspaper articles from when they were attacked. Our weird neighbour.”

Agnes’s face falls. “Oh, that woman. She’s horrid. Don’t mind her. But you’re right,” she continues with a rueful sigh. “Applefary never took kindly to them. Said they were strange, said they were fair folk here to take our children. I never believed them. They were such sweethearts. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Unless it was a really annoying fly,” my sister adds.

Agnes chuckles. “Well, that’s true. Anyway – no, people here didn’t like them much. I did. They were allowed in this pub because I said so. The other two often chased them away, but that was such nonsense. Drink your coffee before it’s cold, dear.”

I oblige and take a sip. Still burning hot, of course.

“Do you think,” I ask slowly, “that anyone in this village despised them so much they were willing to harm them?”

Agnes shakes her head feverishly. “Oh, no. No, people here are distrustful, but never violent. They wouldn’t do such a thing. Besides, even if they wanted to, they feared retaliation too much.”

“Retaliation?”

“From the forest.” She gives Lysandra and I a penetrating stare. “Creatures live between those trees. Mind them.”

My sister stops mopping up the coffee she spilt with her sleeve and looks up. “What kind of creatures?”

Agnes looks at us as if we’re ignorant – which, in her old eyes, we probably are. “Why, faeries, of course.”

Lysandra doesn’t respond. I decide to take over.

“Do you think faeries had something to do with our parents’ death?”

Agnes purses her lips and leans on the bar, deep in thought. “Well, they did build their house on faery grounds,” she ponders. “But in my eyes your parents always had a good bond with the fair folk in the woods, or they wouldn’t have been allowed to live there in the first place. Perhaps they angered them in some way. Though I must admit such a reaction is very extreme.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. “So you know the details of what happened?”

She nods sadly. “Everybody does. There was this terrible journalist at the time – he worked for Applefary Daily. Luckily that doesn’t exist anymore. He disappeared a few years ago. I think maybe he went to look for the fair folk. Anyway, he went to the house and slipped between police patrols to look at what happened. Snapped plenty of pictures, too. The editor refused to print them but of course they spread anyway.”

“Do you know his name?” I ask eagerly. I haven’t come across a rogue journalist yet; perhaps this could be a lead.

Agnes knits her brows together and shakes her head. “Afraid not – my memory can fail me sometimes. Happens to the best of us. Lachlan?”

She turns to a patron who sits at the corner of the bar. Only then do I notice he is staring at my sister and I quite intensely.

“Do you remember what that terrible journalist was called?”

He nods enthusiastically. “Dorian Hickory. Awful person. Used to bully me in school. Hey, are you the Midsummer children?”

A few patrons do look up now. I wish this Lachlan would lower his voice. 

“Yes, we are,” I hiss. “Could you please not yell?”

“Oh, sorry,” he says in a loud whisper. He slips off his chair and sits down next to me, eyeing Lysandra and I with a strange eagerness. “You really are the twins! You have Selus’s eyes.”

“Did you know our father?” I ask.

“Oh, no, not at all. But I know all about him. The case of your parents is incredibly interesting, it’s fascinating, it’s-“

“Morbid?” I interrupt him dryly.

He isn’t fazed. “Yes! Morbidly fascinating. You must be Demetria. And you,” he says while shifting his burning gaze to Lysandra, “must be Lysandra. You look like your father. But I’m sure you’ve been told that before.”

She nods, looking like she wants to shrink and slip away at the earliest convenience.

“Wonderful! How amazing!” He laughs. “I didn’t think you two would ever come back. What a day!”

“Glad we could help,” I mumble.

He grins. “Well, you could help me a bit more. We could help each other. You see, I want to become a private investigator-“

“Lachlan,” Agnes says sharply.

I shake my head. “No, it’s fine. I want to hear what he has to say.”

He smiles gratefully, unshaken by my cold tone and crossed arms. I decide he reminds me of an enormous stick insect, with his thin wiry body, his small neck and the enormous round glasses balanced on his slender nose. His curly hair is ruffled and unkempt, a mousy brown colour, and looks in desperate need of a good comb-through.

“As I was saying – I want to become a private investigator. But to do that I have to solve a case first. And your parents’ regrettable, uh, end...”

“You can say murder. It’s fine.”

He blushes a little. “Right. Your parents’ murder is as good a case as any. I’m determined to solve it. But so far all leads are a dead end. All plausible leads, that is. But now that you’re here... we could work together. As a team. A detective team.”

I eye him carefully. He’s young, but older than Lysandra and I. His youthfulness comes from his energy and childlike enthusiasm. His eyes, enlarged by his round glasses, sparkle and shine like they are filled with electricity. Even Agnes looks at him with a grandmotherly fondness that my sister is close to copying. Lysandra has always had a knack for adopting wayward souls into her life.

“A detective team,” I repeat monotonously. 

He nods again – his glasses bounce off his nose like he’s on a rollercoaster. “Yes! We could help each other! You two were there. You know much more. You’re insiders. Don’t you want to know what happened to your parents?”

“We do,” Lysandra pipes up. “Demetria has an investigation journal and everything.”

I give her a withering glare. Great. Not something I wanted everyone to know. Lachlan, on the other hand, claps his hands enthusiastically and sits a bit closer, almost in my personal space.

“Super! Can I see it?”

I groan. “God fucking- maybe later.”

“Ah.” He deflates a bit. “Well, no matter. I have so many things to share with you. Would you do me the honour of coming to my house? I can show you everything – we can see if we can figure out a theory together! The Midsummer children, here in Applefary... what are the odds?”

He looks at us starry-eyed. I have to admit I’m flattered. He seems so genuinely interested in us, in what happened to our parents, his eyes still so full of hope and wonder. Perhaps he has something useful in his house, too. And if he turns out to be a psychopath... well, there’s two of us, and one of him. His bones look like they are hollow like a bird’s. Besides, I’ve done some Jujitsu in Brighton. I’m sure I can take him.

“Alright,” I say with a dramatic sigh, and slip off my stool. “We’ll hear you out. But you’d better not be wasting our time.”

He shakes his head feverishly. “I wouldn’t dare! Are you coming, too, Lysandra?”

My sister seems somewhat shaken that this Lachlan has decided we’re all one a first-name basis already. She nods, too confused to refuse his request. Lachlan claps his   
hands excitedly. 

“Wonderful! Well, you go ahead and finish up here. I’ll wait outside. Cold air always stimulates the thoughts, don’t you think?”

And with those words he slips out of his seat and hurries outside. Lysandra and I both look at Agnes. She shrugs.

“He’s harmless,” she says, “if a bit strange. His parents were hippies.”

We laugh. I pay for our coffees and thank Agnes profusely. She takes her time to grab our hands and tell us we have to take care of ourselves; she waits to make sure we bundle up properly and shoves the cookies, packed up in a wad of napkins, into my bag, making me promise we’ll eat them, soon. We wave our goodbyes. The other patrons continue to ignore us but I can’t bring myself to caring very much. Perhaps, finally, I’ll have a lead. I’ll be able to figure out who or what killed my parents all those years ago.


	8. Chapter Eight

_Demetria_

“Well, this is me,” Lachlan says sheepishly.

He points to a house which stands half-collapsed and crooked between the supermarket and another house. It’s in desperate need of renovation. The door hardly hangs from its hinges anymore; most of the paint has peeled off; the upstairs windows have been boarded up. Lachlan notices me staring at them.

“Some kids threw them in,” he admits with a beet-red blush. “I boarded them up because I was afraid they’d do it again.”

Poor guy. He mumbles some things to himself as he unlocks the door and kicks it three times before it finally jams open and slams against the wall. Some dust falls from the ceiling, which makes me less than excited to walk in. My curiosity gets the better of me, however, and I pull my reluctant sister inside as well.

“I’m sorry for the mess.” Lachlan kicks aside an empty box – I’m pretty sure I see some kind of rodent scurry from it, but decide to ignore it. “I haven’t cleaned in a while.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” I mumble.

Sometimes, when people say ‘sorry for the mess’, they have maybe one sock lying on the floor and a single speck of dust on the windowsill, and that’s what they call a mess. Lachlan’s house is an actual rubbish heap. Everywhere I look there are newspaper clippings, post-it notes, pictures and sketches pinned to the wall. The only regular painting that hangs in the hallway hangs crookedly and the glass is broken. Huge leather-bound volumes, old water-damaged paperbacks and a multitude of other books are scattered over the floors; some open, some closed, but all of them damaged in some way. 

“You live here?” Lysandra asks, careful to keep her tone as neutral as possible.

Lachlan smiles, his blush becoming worse and worse. “Well, yes. I’m bad at keeping a place neat. Uh... do you want anything to drink?”

“I think we’re good,” I say, eyeing the pile of dishes in the sink which looks like it’s been there since the Stone Age.

“Right. Well. Have a seat.”

We look around. No seats in sight, unless you count the Ottoman which is spilling its filling all over the ratty carpet.

“Where, exactly?” I ask.

Lachlan begins to throw a bunch of papers and an old, broken laptop off a sofa with almost no holes in it. I see a few spiders plummeting to almost certain deaths in the process. The strange man seems to not only investigate things, but to collect as well. There are glass cases with the strangest things in them: butterflies on pins, shrunken heads, weapons I don’t recognise as weapons, a Greek vase that is most likely as fake as a Botox smile, old empty perfume bottles, vintage jewellery and plenty of other things that have no use and take up a lot of space.

“You have a hoarder problem,” I say as I sit down on the sofa. A cloud of dust shoots up into the air as I land, enough to make my sister cough like someone who smokes three packs of cigarettes a day.

“What’s this? A robot arm?” Lysandra asks as she holds up something which indeed looks like someone from the first Terminator film.

Lachlan shakes his head and carefully takes it from her, putting it on a dusty plush red pillow on one of his many desks. “It’s a Victorian prosthetic arm. I found it online.”

“Right,” I drawl, “why do you have that?”

He shrugs.

“Okay. Well. Any other fake limbs we should know about?”

It was meant as a joke, but to my great surprise he pulls out a wooden leg from under a reading chair and puts it next to the prosthetic arm.

“Only this one, I think. Though there might be a real wooden pirate leg somewhere – oh, no, never mind, it’s holding up the coffee table.”

Indeed. One of the coffee table’s legs is missing and has been replaced by an ancient-looking worn wooden leg. It’s probably not a real pirate leg, but then again I wouldn’t put it past him to actually find a real one.

I lay my head in my hands and groan. “Why are we here?”

“We have a common goal!” he says with a huge, lovely white smile.

“Is that a treasure chest?” Lysandra asks, and points at a huge trunk which stands in the corner of the room, sort of half-concealed under a colourful rug.

He shakes his head. “No. It’s a dowry suitcase. My mum’s from India and she is still holding out hope I’ll get married soon. My dad’s English, so he’s sort of given up hope. They don’t pressure me much, though, and I see them once every few weeks for coffee. There’s a picture, see?”

He points to an ornate silver picture frame on the coffee table. It shows a lovely couple: an elegant woman with sweet eyes and gorgeous coffee skin smiling brightly into the camera, and a shy distracted-looking wiry man with thick-rimmed glasses who’s smiling like he can’t believe his luck. They seem like a sweet match. It’s clear where Lachlan got his looks from; the resemblance to his father is uncanny, though Lachlan’s skin is several shades darker and he has his mother enormous doe eyes.

“Any more questions about my house?” he asks enthusiastically. “I have some great fossils in the attics, I can get them if you want!”

“That’s okay,” I say quickly before my sister can agree. “We’re here about our parents, remember?”

“Right. Yes. Your parents. Such an interesting case.” He starts pacing up and down with his hands behind his back like a detective cartoon. “The house that appeared out of nowhere. The way this village rejected them. The rumours about the fair folk living in the woods, though there is no proof.”

“There were only a few serial killers active in the area at the time,” I add. “And none of them worked like... well, like how our parents were murdered.”

Lysandra tightens a bit besides me. She hates speaking about that night, and I’ve tried many times to get her to open up about it. I subtly grab her hand to let her know I’m there and continue.

“It could be the work of a random madman, but that seems unlikely. It was planned – prepared. Don’t you think?”

Lachlan seems incredibly pleased that he’s met someone who has done just as much research as him. He stops pacing and sits down on the coffee table, which sways and creaks dangerously. 

“Exactly! I’m so glad you know your stuff – it saves time. So, we agree, perhaps the stories about the woods are true?”

“Wow,” Lysandra says, and holds up her hands. “No, no, no. Come on. Are we really considering this?”

“You said it yourself. You said you saw someone walking through the woods a few nights ago.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly thinking that something supernatural was wandering around our house,” she says, obviously a bit annoyed. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Then why do you fear the woods so much?” I demand.

She crosses her arms. “Because that’s how I was raised.”

“We had the same childhood. I don’t fear the woods,” I counter, “and I don’t plan on avoiding them. Don’t you think there is a reason why our aunts and uncles were so adamant on us being afraid of the forest?”

Throughout our entire childhood we were taught to love concrete, steel and metal; to love flat buildings and elevators and neatly made parks with benches and duck ponds. Things that are human-made; things that are safe. Once, I wandered off into the tiny little forest behind the house of one of my aunts when we were visiting and aunt Gracie locked me in the house for the rest of the day. When I asked her why she said it wasn’t safe, that I could have gotten lost, that there were animals in there that could harm me. When I tried to argue she wouldn’t hear it. I looked out of the window for the rest of the day, at the beautiful tall trees, the lush green leaves, the little salamanders and small fat birds scurrying away between the bushes. Inside felt musty and cramped. Outside felt... like flying. 

Lysandra had believed them. Always. Even now she’s looking at me with carefully conditioned stubbornness and that little hint of fear that’s always there when she speaks of the woods.

“Because they wanted to care for us,” she says, crossing her arms.

I sigh. “I don’t doubt that. But why the forest? It’s just nature. Think about it logically. Trees can’t harm you.”

“Things can live between the trees,” she mutters.

“Like what? We only have foxes here. No bears or wolves or anything of the sort. No, our aunts and uncles feared the woods – because they knew something. They knew   
something we didn’t and they didn’t want to tell us. Well, if they won’t tell us, I’ll find out my bloody self.”

She says nothing, but her silence speaks volumes. I know she’s upset I don’t agree with her on this, and I know she wants to stay away from the woods. Most of all I know she wants to leave our parents’ death behind her; she’s already made peace with it. 

I lay my hand on her shoulder.

“Lysandra, you don’t have to do this with me. I can handle it on your own.”

She glares at me. “Well, you don’t have to. I said I would help you and I will, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Well, then, keep an open mind,” I say carefully. “I know it’s strange to believe that things live in the woods, but... well, we can’t dismiss anything.”

She looks at me with big sad eyes, our father’s eyes, bright green like new grass. “I just don’t understand why you can’t just leave this whole thing in the past.”

“I have to know what happened.”

“Why?”

“I just... do.” I nod at Lachlan, who’s been following the whole conversation with a scientific interest. “He understands. Mysteries need to be solved, don’t they?”

He nods vigorously. “They do! That’s why we’re here, aren’t we?”

“Exactly.” I ignore my sister’s attempt to interrupt us and pull out my investigation journal, which I keep with me always. “This is all I collected over five years. I have more pictures and articles at home, a few boxes of stuff...”

“Great!” Lachlan says happily. “Let me pull out my board!”

“Your board?”

He pulls out his board. And by that I mean he pushes aside a desk, which topples over, spilling papers and books and broken ink bottles everywhere (‘don’t worry about it, happens all the time’), pushes about four stacks of books aside and wrestles a whiteboard out from in between a wooden unicorn statue and a broken old-timey bike. It’s covered in a piece of grungy white tarp, which he pulls off to reveal what looks like a crime scene board from a terrible television show. A bad picture of our parents, cut from the newspaper, sits in the middle. Threads of a thousand different colours lead from that picture to other pictures, clippings, theories and notes, and the feverish handwriting is illegible. 

I stare for a bit. “Well, this definitely doesn’t look like a serial killer’s victim board.”

“Yes,” he says, blushing profusely, “well, I might have gone a bit overboard. I’ve been extremely interested in this case since I was about sixteen.”

“A healthy hobby for any teenager.”

He squares his shoulders a bit in an attempt to look defying. “Well, I was the first to figure out that there were multiple people on the scene, not just one. The police hadn’t come to that realisation yet.”

“Your parents must have been so proud.”

Lysandra gives me a warning look and smiles at Lachlan as encouragingly as she can. “How did you find that out, Lachlan?”

Happy that someone takes a kind approach he pulls out an actual laser pointer and starts pacing up and down in front of the board like a criminology teacher on meth.

“I used the crime scene pictures that awful journalist took. Dorian Hickory. His disappearance is next on my list of mysteries to solve, by the way, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s all connected. It’s hard to see because of all the, eh... mess, but there seem to be multiple sets of footprints. Bare feet. How strange is that? And still, no DNA left on the scene – except for your parents’ DNA, of course.”

It’s strange. All that blood, and all of it belonged to my parents. I knew my father and my mother well enough to understand they would have fought back. But nothing. No hair, no nails, no skin, no nothing. Not even fingerprints and the scene definitely hadn’t been wiped clean in any way. Even the willow-branch horns thrusted into their skulls didn’t end up providing the police with any leads, though they were obviously there to send a message of some sort.

“The police didn’t find anything?” Lysandra asks. I can tell she’s getting curious. Though she is not nearly as stubborn as me, I know she is curious by nature – perhaps this mystery is finally drawing her in, too.

Lachlan shrugs and puts down the laser pointer. It rolls of the crooked coffee table and disappears in a pile of corsets. What on earth does this man need with at least five expensive-looking corsets? Does he collect them?

“The police didn’t try that much,” I explain. I get up and open my investigation journal, taking out an angry letter sent to a regional newspaper at the time. “They gave up incredibly quickly. It’s a cold case and it’s been that for a long time. This is an anonymous letter sent to a newspaper at the time – someone who was upset the police didn’t seem to care that much about the death of a young couple.”

Lachlan takes the letter from me as if it is a priceless piece of jewellery or an ancient treasure and lovingly hangs it on his board with a watermelon-shaped magnet. My sister and I observe quietly as he finds a piece of baby blue string and connects the letter to a picture of a woman I don’t know.

“The detective in charge at the time got a lot of backlash for it,” he says, and points at the portrait. “Ailith MacGregor. She resigned soon after and refuses to speak to anybody now. Trust me, I’ve tried. She lives a few villages over.”

“I want to visit her,” I decide.

Lysandra bites her bottom lip. “I’m not sure, Demetria. I mean, if she really doesn’t want to be bothered...”

“I’m sure she wants to speak to the children of the people whose case she refused to solve sixteen years ago. She owes us that much.”

Lachlan nods, smiling a bit slyly. “She might agree to see you. We could try. You came here by car, right? Mine broke down.”

“Right now?” Lysandra tightens her grip on one of Lachlan’s throw pillows. “As in, we’re leaving right now?”

Lachlan is indeed putting on his long brown wool coat. It has ink spots on the sleeves and makes him look even longer than he already is. He grabs a leather-bound journal and a pen, scurrying through his many belongings to see if he’s missed anything. So he is actually ready to leave this exact moment. I smile, deciding I like this man. He’s strange – a bit off-putting, maybe, and his house looks like a psychopath’s den, but he is determined. Just as determined as I am.

I get up as well and smile at Lysandra, who seems to be using the throw pillow as some kind of shield against invisible danger now.

“Come on. Let’s go. There’s no time like the present, right?”

Lysandra groans, but allows me to pull her to her feet. I give her an encouraging wink and follow Lachlan’s flapping coat outside. It’s still freezing cold. I never thought I’d ever consider England a warm place, but compared to the North of Scotland... well, Brighton suddenly seems like a tropical paradise. A paradise that that does not hold any of the answers I seek.


	9. Chapter Nine

_Demetria_

I get Lachlan to move from the driver’s seat and start the car. Lysandra sits Grumpily in the back, arms crossed, and refuses to say anything as we speed from Applefary like a poorly shot Hollywood car chase. Lachlan immediately starts fidgeting with my ancient car radio until I slap his hand.  
“What the hell are you doing?”  
He goes for the buttons again. “Looking for the right music. This is all so exciting, isn’t it? I don’t have a car, so I can’t drive to the other town, but this... this feels like it’s actually a new start!”  
“Couldn’t you have taken a bus?” Lysandra mumbles grumpily.  
“No busses going here. Do you have any CD’s?”  
I grin. “I have an aux cable.”  
“Oh. Well... okay. Yeah. Does it have any driver’s music?”  
“You connect it to your phone.”  
Once more, he blushes. His face does really seem to be red half of the time. “Sorry. I collect old things. I like old things.”  
“You should visit an old people home.”  
He shudders. “Oh, no, they horrify me. Left here, by the way. Town’s called Lock Saige. There’s no lake, but, uh, the founder didn’t know that.”  
“Yeah, that seems right.”  
Seeing the Scottish countryside pass by while I drive really makes me miss... well, home. Not this collapsed skeleton of a house with blood stains in the floorboards, but the warm, candle-lit home my parents danced around in. Their footsteps on the carpet, barely making a sound, humming along to the song bursting from the record player. The way they taught my sister and I the names of the trees and plants in our garden, though I can hardly remember any of them. How my mother always brought home wildflowers, roots and all, to plant them in a pot for a little while in our home and then put them back in the wild. The smell of my father’s freshly baked lavender bread and the way he whispered to the animals scurrying around our garden as if telling them secrets. It’s so green out. The fields, the trees, just begging for me to stop the car and run, run, run until my feet can’t carry me anymore. Feel the cold air in my lungs, fresh and clean enough to grow gardens in my body.  
We pass a village occasionally. They’re small; quaint; there’s barely any people out, but the ones that are stare at the car as it zooms by. Perhaps it doesn’t help that we still have a British number plate. Lachlan mumbles to himself and writes in his journal; my sister stares at her phone and occasionally shoots me a worried glance. The tapping of her long-nailed fingers on the screen and the soft mutterings Lachlan emits slowly become a comfortable hum in the background.  
I feel at home here. That’s really it. My sister doesn’t, and I know that, and I know it would break her if I told her that really I want to stay here for longer than we need to. It’s hard to admit to myself. I’ve been trying to tell myself that I want to leave as much as Lysandra does, but I feel connected to this place, even if it does hold so much misery. I guess I was just hoping I could reclaim that trauma. Make it my own.  
Lysandra has different plans. I hope we can come to some sort of agreement in the end – perhaps, if she stays here for a bit longer, she gets used to the house again.  
“Isn’t this beautiful, Lysandra?” I try.  
She looks up and out the window. “It’s nice,” she agrees.  
That’s all I get. I try not to sigh and focus on the road ahead, hoping we’re at the village soon. Lachlan’s constant muttering is becoming a bit jarring.  
Finally a crooked sign appears which reads ‘Loch Saige’. I park the car next to the church and get out.  
“Okay. Now what?” I ask as soon as the others have left the vehicle, too.  
Lachlan smiles broadly, his teeth glittering in the pale afternoon light. “I know the way.”  
“Right. Should that concern me?”  
He doesn’t respond but starts walking. Or it’s more like a jog. I give Lysandra an exhausted look – she giggles and nods.   
“Let’s just follow him. I’m sure we won’t be arrested.”  
“Let’s hope you’re right,” I mumble, and follow Lachlan.  
The village is only a little bigger than Applefary, but they seem to have a post office and more people move around outside. Some even greet us, though we don’t know them. It’s a sweet little town, with flower pots and benches everywhere. Many people own dogs; at least three enormous Golden Retrievers come to greet us. One is even wearing a plaid little scarf to match his owner’s.   
“We could have lived here,” Lysandra mumbles, “but no, we had to live in the weird murder town. There’s a perfectly good hill there. Why couldn’t our parents have built their house there?”  
I laugh. “No woods here.”  
“What a disaster,” she says sarcastically.  
“Dad loved them.”  
“I know, I know. And mum did, too.”  
Lachlan stops suddenly – I nearly run into him. “We’re here,” he says dramatically.  
If he hadn’t pointed it out I might have missed the house altogether. It’s narrow and painted in drab greys and browns, as if it is trying to blend into the shadows. I had almost mistaken it for an alley. The windows are dirty and the curtains closed. Paint is flaking off everywhere, and the flowerpots are empty except for a few discarded pieces of plastic packaging. It doesn’t look like anyone lives there but still Lachlan confidently walks up to the door and knocks three times.  
It remains deathly quiet on the other side. Lysandra clears her throat.  
“Maybe nobody’s home.”  
The words have not yet escaped her mouth or the door opens, slowly and carefully; a pair of suspicious brown eyes peers through. The hallway is dark; I can’t see what the woman looks like, let alone if she is carrying a weapon of some sort. As soon as she notices Lachlan her eyes narrow.  
“You again,” she snarls. “I thought I had told you to leave before. What do you want now?”  
He holds up his hands in a peaceful gesture and smiles. “I assure you, madam, there is a good reason for why I came by today.”  
He steps aside and makes a grand gesture towards Lysandra and I, as if he is revealing his final and most spectacular act in a circus he’s running. I say nothing, but square my shoulders and straighten my back, desperate not to reveal any weakness to this person I don’t yet know.  
“Is this supposed to mean something to me?” she asks.  
I sigh. “What Lachlan here is trying to explain so awfully is that we are here about the Midsummer case.”  
“That was long ago. It’s in the past. Leave it there.”  
“Exactly what I’ve been saying,” Lysandra says with a sigh.  
I ignore her and take a step forward. “We have a personal interest in the case. You see, the murdered couple, they were our parents. I’m Demetria Midsummer. This is my twin sister Lysandra.”  
Her eyes widen in a cartoonish fashion and for a few loaded seconds, all is quiet. Then she seems to give in to some internal conflict and opens the door.  
In the daylight I can see she’s looking a bit worse for wear. Her mousy brown hair hangs down her back in two messy braids. She has dark circles around her eyes; eyes that, despite her less-than-perfect demeanour, still glitter intelligently. She wears clothes several sizes too big and flipflops that will do little to protect her toes from the biting cold. In her hands she indeed has a small baseball bat. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if Lachlan had gone here on his own.  
“Come in,” she says dully. “I knew this day would come.”  
Without another word she turns and walks into her house, leaving the door open for us. I look at my sister. She shrugs and nods at the opening, gesturing for me to go first. I can’t look weak in her eyes – I take a few steps forward and cross the threshold.  
It smells strange. Dull, like a place that has not been visited in a while. The very air is thick with dust. I had been expecting a place like Lachlan’s, cluttered and messy, but instead the house is completely empty. Hardly any furniture, no pictures, no flowers, no decoration of any kind. The bare necessities only.  
“This is very Spartan, isn’t it?” I ask.  
Ailith MacGregor says nothing. She doesn’t even offer us anything to drink. She just sits down on a dusty sofa and rubs her temples as if fighting a killer headache. I’ve been raised too politely to actually sit down without being asked, so I hover around the living room awkwardly, my sister and Lachlan behind me like two shy orbiting moons. I’ve never seen a living room this empty. There’s not even a television. No bookshelf. Nothing.  
“You’re here about your parents,” she eventually says. A statement, not a question.  
“Yes. You were on the case back then.”  
She gives me a wry smile. “So I was. Why are you here?”  
“Well,” I say, while carefully leaning against the one table that stands smack-dab in the middle of the room, “we came out of necessity. We want to sell the house we grew up in to make some money. But when we were here we figured we do really want to find out what happened to our parents.”  
“And you came to me?” She scoffs. “I don’t have the answers. You can read the police report if you want to.”  
“I did. It wasn’t... satisfactory.”  
“Figures. It wasn’t either sixteen years ago.”  
I wonder how old Ailith is. She looks near her fifties, but her eyes are so young. Perhaps the lack of proper sleep ages her in my eyes. How old was she when she took on the case? Too young? Not young enough?  
“You were there,” Lysandra says softly. “You saw the scene.”  
Ailith’s face tightens. She casts her eyes down, suddenly desperate to avoid any eye contact, and sighs.  
“Yes. I was. It was... awful, to say the least. Too much for two girls of nine to see.” Something soft seeps into her tone now. “It’s a good thing you moved. But why on earth did you come back?”  
“We want to find out what happened to our parents,” I repeat.  
“You said. It’s not a nice place here. You should go back. Go back to a nice city, where young people like you belong.”  
Lysandra is the first to finally sit down. She chooses a spot right across Ailith, directly in her line of sight.  
“We lived in a city before this,” she says calmly. “But that’s not the point right now. My sister is right. You were there. Don’t you have any idea who... what... well, what happened there?”  
“If I did, don’t you think I would have investigated it? Don’t you think I would have found proof? Don’t you think there would be a police report?”  
Lachlan softly clears his throat. “Well, unless you thought it was so ridiculous that you were afraid to even propose it to your co-workers.”  
“What do you mean?” she asks sharply.  
Lachlan sits down next to Lysandra, leaning forward eagerly. “There’s talk in town. Of beautiful people that came from the trees. Beautiful people with evil intentions. People that weren’t human.”  
Ailith says nothing.  
“I know that there are stories that go around this area,” Lachlan continues. “Perhaps you thought one of those stories turned out to be true. Perhaps you saw it. And perhaps you were so afraid nobody would believe you that you told no one.”  
Still, she says nothing.   
Lachlan isn’t bluffing. I know he read the stories I did. Stories originating from this area that people to this day sometimes seem to believe. In some regional newspapers at the time, articles appeared mocking the citizens of Applefary for their insistence that the fair folk from the woods killed the mysterious couple up on the hill. It became such a personal and mean-spirited case that the people of Applefary decided to decline to speak to all journalists. The story quickly died and the region seemed to forget. And still...  
“We know it sounds strange,” I add. “But the people in Applefary seem to believe it. I read up on the stories they tell. Of gorgeous tall creatures with horns and pointed ears. Of slender hands curling around tree bark and intelligent eyes watching from the shadows. Of... of faeries.”  
Lysandra looks up now – not at Ailith, but at me. She seems... angry.  
“Don’t be ridiculous, Demetria.”  
“I thought you’d keep an open mind.”  
She rolls her eyes. “Well, to an extent. Faeries don’t exist. Everyone knows that.”  
“Do they? What about the people in Applefary?”  
“Well, living so secluded from the real world would make anyone a bit strange. People are bored. They imagine things...”  
“Imagined things don’t kill,” I interrupt curtly. “Imagined things don’t make mock horns out of willow twigs and smash them into our parents’ skulls.”  
“Jesus fucking Christ, Demetria!” Lysandra gets up to face me, cheeks slightly flushed from ill-concealed anger. “I thought you’d take this seriously! I thought going with you, going here for real, normal answers, would bring you some peace, but you can’t just hold on to this delusion like... like a child!”  
“I’m not a child. And I’m not delusional!”  
“Do you know how hard it is,” Ailith suddenly says loudly, “to be taken seriously in a police force full of men?”  
We all fall silent and look at the weathered woman who sits deflated on the sofa. She’s playing with a broken whiskey glass, running her calloused fingers along the splintered rim without cutting herself.  
“Of course I couldn’t tell them.” Her tone is soft – she seems to speak more to herself than to us. “I couldn’t tell them what I saw. Would they believe me? I grew up with those tales; my grandmother believed them, and my mother after her. I just couldn’t believe that they were real.”  
Lysandra slowly turns around. “You mean... you believe them, too?”  
Ailith laughs shortly, bitterly. “You don’t believe me, of course. But I saw them. I visited the crime scene late at night, desperate for a lead, desperate to help those two young girls – you, actually – get the peace of mind they deserved. Such a tragedy... and such a lovely couple. I went back alone. I wanted to be alone. Being surrounded by such insensitive idiots all day... well, it took a toll. Could you hand me that bottle over there?”  
She looks at me and then points at a half-emptied whiskey bottle on the floor next to the broken coffee table. I look at Lachlan – he shrugs and nods.  
“Always happy to enable daytime alcoholism,” I mumble, and hand Ailith the bottle.  
She doesn’t even bother with a glass – she just drinks straight from the bottle, a habit I once had when studying, but quickly gave up when I grew older and somewhat wiser.  
“ I told myself I was just tired. We all were. But I swear it, to all of you,” she says with a swaying hand, spilling the brown drink all over her already not-very-clean trousers, “I saw them. They came to collect some of the blood. I never found out why – I didn’t ask. When I walked into the living room and saw them...” She shudders. “I did what my mother and grandmother always told me to do. I turned and ran. But they saw me, too.”  
“I’m sorry,” Lysandra interrupts, “are you actually talking about faeries?”  
Ailith nods grimly. “In the flesh. More beautiful and terrible than the tales could ever describe. I don’t know how they found me, but the next day everything in my garden had withered and died. A message, I knew. A warning. But I was young and stupid and continued to investigate the case. One day I even walked into the forest.” Her eyes gloss over at the memory. She is miles away. “My memory of it is fuzzy. That’s what they do to you. Often people who find them think they are dreaming. But this was no dream. I remember running, running for my life... I barely escaped.”  
She puts down the bottle and starts rolling up the sleeve of her grungy flannel. On her left arm sit three enormous gruesome scars, parallel to each other, jagged and horrible. I take a careful step closer to see them better.  
“Claw marks,” I whisper.  
Ailith nods again and pulls down her sleeve. “You’re damn right. That could have been my throat, had I not been lucky. But the day after... well, those same claw marks appeared on my door. Along with a package... a bone. A human one, I’m sure of it. I never told any of my co-workers. How could i explain? Most people in the village luckily assumed the marks on my door were the work of some disgruntled Midsummer case fanatic. I knew the truth, however. I knew it wasn’t safe. The next day I resigned, packed up and left.”  
“And the case went cold,” Lysandra whispers.  
Ailith shrugs. “Nobody else was as devoted. Nobody else was willing to go that far. Your parents... well, I’m sure you have good memories of them, but most people in the village thought they were strange. No doubt some of them were glad to see them go, even if it was in such a gruesome way.”  
“Great to hear,” I mumble.  
“But faeries aren’t real,” Lysandra says, with very little conviction this time.  
Ailith laughs a short, bitter, horrible laugh. “If you want to tell yourself that, go ahead, girl, but it’s better to accept the truth before it hurts you. I don’t think they’ll ever stop hunting me. I’ll never go back there. There’s no woods around here, you know? Only fields. Cattle and grass. I’m safe here, and not too far from home.”  
She gets to her feet. Only then do I notice she stands crookedly – like something is permanently hurting her right leg. She sees me stare. I look away, blushing, apology at the ready, but she starts rolling up her pant leg instead.   
“Uh,” Lachlan says in a high-pitched voice, “what are you doing?”  
She doesn’t respond – she just continues rolling. I lean back against the table and wait patiently, though my sister looks like she wants to leave more than anything. When I see what Ailith wants to show us I nearly turn and run myself.  
Her leg is a complete mess of scars. Claw and burn marks run up and down like she has stuck it in an oven with flaming rotating knives in the middle. Her bones look like they have been broken and have not mended well; something tells me she has not been to a proper doctor about this, whatever ‘this’ is. It explains the limp. Her foot stands at a strange angle; her leg is a patchwork of awful fleshy colours, scar tissue and rough skin.  
Lachlan proceeds to turn away, retching, and runs from the living room to the corridor.  
“What happened?” Lysandra asks in a horrified whisper.  
Ailith gives her a direct stare, harsh enough to cut glass. “Things you think are imagined. I know the fairy tales say otherwise, but faeries aren’t small, winged things; they have claws and horns and they are dangerous.”  
Lysandra says nothing. She looks back at me, looking for help.  
“You don’t believe me,” Ailith says softly. “But that is okay. You will, soon.”  
“Is that a threat?” I ask sharply.  
Ailith smiles grimly, pushing her pant leg down. “No. It’s a fact, girl. The fair folk is real and they live in the woods next to your house. Start believing in it before it kills you.” She gives me a sharp look. “Because it might, if you’re not careful.”


End file.
